The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

These words the young lady heard, being near the speaker; and somewhat troubled by the opinion her father seemed to have of her, that, if he wished it, she would suffer herself to be kissed by any one in this free way, rising, and looking a moment at her father, and blushing with shame, said: ‘Father, do not make such courteous promises at the expense ot my modesty, for certainly, unless by violence, no one shall ever kiss me, except him whom you shall give me as my husband.’ The Emperor, on hearing this, much commended the words and the young lady.⁠ ⁠… And calling forward a noble youth named Guido Beisangue, who was afterwards called Guido the Elder, who as yet had no wife, he insisted upon his marrying her; and gave him as her dowry a large territory in Cassentino and the Alps, and made him Count thereof.”

Ampère says in his Voyage Dantesque, page 242:⁠—

“Near the battlefield of Campaldino stands the little town of Poppi, whose castle was built in 1230 by the father of the Arnolfo who built some years later the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. In this castle is still shown the bedroom of the beautiful and modest Gualdrada.”

Francesco Sansovino, an Italian novelist of the sixteenth century, has made Gualdrada the heroine of one of his tales, but has strangely perverted the old tradition. His story may be found in Roscoe’s Italian Novelists, III p. 107. ↩

Tegghiajo Aldobrandi was a distinguished citizen of Florence, and opposed what Malespini calls “the ill counsel of the people,” that war should be declared against the Sienese, which war resulted in the battle of Monte Aperto and the defeat of the Florentines. ↩

Jacopo Rusticucci was a rich Florentine gentleman, whose chief misfortune seems to have been an ill-assorted marriage. Whereupon the amiable Boccaccio in his usual Decameron style remarks:⁠—

“Men ought not then to be overhasty in getting married; on the contrary, they should come to it with much precaution.”

And then he indulges in five octavo pages against matrimony and woman in general. ↩

See Macchiavelli’s story of “Belfagor,” wherein Minos and Rhadamanthus, and the rest of the infernal judges, are greatly surprised to hear an infinite number of condemned souls “lament nothing so bitterly as their folly in having taken wives, attributing to them the whole of their misfortune.” ↩

Boccaccio, in his Comento, speaks of Guglielmo Borsiere as “a courteous gentleman of good breeding and excellent manners”; and in the Decameron, Gior. I Nov. 8, tells of a sharp rebuke administered by him to Messer Ermino de’ Grimaldi, a miser of Genoa:⁠—

“It came to pass, that, whilst by spending nothing he went on accumulating wealth, there came to Genoa a well-bred and witty gentleman called Gulielmo Borsiere, one nothing like the courtiers of the present day; who, to the great reproach of the debauched dispositions of such as would now be reputed fine gentlemen, should more properly style themselves asses, brought up amidst the filthiness and sink of mankind, rather than in courts.⁠ ⁠…

“This Gulielmo, whom I before mentioned, was much visited and respected by the better sort of people at Genoa; when having made some stay here, and hearing much talk of Ermino’s sordidness, he became desirous of seeing him. Now Ermino had been informed of Gulielmo’s worthy character, and having, however covetous he was, some small sparks of gentility, he received him in a courteous manner, and, entering into discourse together, he took him, and some Genoese who came along with him, to see a fine house which he had lately built: and when he had showed every part of it, he said: ‘Pray, sir, can you, who have heard and seen so much, tell me of something that was never yet seen, to have painted in my hall?’ To whom Gulielmo, hearing him speak so simply, replied: ‘Sir, I can tell you of nothing which has never yet been seen, that I know of; unless it be sneezing, or some thing of that sort; but if you please, I can tell you of a thing which, I believe, vou never saw.’ Said Ermmo (little expecting such an answer as he received), ‘I beg you would let me know what that is.’ Gulielmo immediately replied, ‘Paint Liberality.’ When Ermino heard this, such a sudden shame seized him, as quite changed his temper from what it had hitherto been; and he said: ‘Sir, I will have her painted in such a manner that neither you, nor any one else, shall be able to say, hereafter, that I am unacquainted with her.’ And from that time such effect had Gulielmo’s words upon him, he became the most liberal and courteous gentleman, and was the most respected, both by strangers and his own citizens, of any in Genoa.”

↩

Monte Veso is among the Alps, between Piedmont and Savoy, where the Po takes its rise. From this point eastward to the Adriatic, all the rivers on the left or northern slope of the Apennines are tributaries to the Po, until we come to the Montone, which above Forli is called Acquacheta. This is the first which flows directly into the Adriatic, and not into the Po. At least it was so in Dante’s time. Now, by some change in its course, the Lamone, farther north, has opened itself a new outlet, and is the first to make its own way to the Adriatic. See Barlow, Contributions to the Study of the Divine Comedy, p. 131. This comparison shows the delight which Dante took in the study of physical geography. To reach the waterfall of Acquacheta he traverses in thought the entire valley of the Po, stretching across the whole of Northern Italy. ↩

Boccaccio’s interpretation of this line, which has been adopted by most of the commentators since his time, is as follows:⁠—

“I was for