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

escape with shame. And putting on his helmet, which had on it a silver eagle for a crest, this eagle fell on the saddlebow before him; and seeing this he was greatly disturbed, and said in Latin to the barons who were near him, ‘Hoc est signum Dei; for this crest I fastened on with my own hands in such a way that it could not fall.’ But he was not discouraged, and took heart, and went into battle like any other baron, without the royal insignia, in order not to be recognized. But short while it lasted, for his forces were already in flight; and they were routed and Manfredi slain in the middle of the enemy; and they were driven into the town by the soldiers of King Charles, for it was now night, and they lost the city of Benevento. And many of Manfredi’s barons were made prisoners, among whom were the Count Giordano, Messer Piero Asino degli Uberti, and many others, whom King Charles sent captive into Provence, and there had them put to death in prison; and he imprisoned many other Germans in different parts of the kingdom. And a few days afterwards the wife of Manfredi and his children and his sister, who were in Nocera de’ Sardini in Apulia, were taken prisoners by Charles; these died in prison. And for more than three days they made search after Manfredi; for he could not be found, nor was it known if he were dead, or a prisoner, or had escaped; because he had not worn his royal robes in the battle. And afterwards he was recognized by one of his own camp-followers, from certain marks upon his person, in the njiddle of the battlefield; and he threw him across an ass, and came shouting, ‘Who will buy Manfredi?’ for which a baron of the king beat him with a cane. And the body of Manfredi being brought to King Charles, he assembled all the barons who were prisoners, and asked each one if that was Manfredi; and timidly they answered yes. Count Giordano smote himself in the face with his hands, weeping and crying, ‘O my lord!’ whereupon he was much commended by the French, and certain Bretons besought that he might have honorable burial. Answered the king and said, ‘I would do it willingly, if he were not excommunicated’; and on that account he would not have him laid in consecrated ground, but he was buried at the foot of the bridge of Benevento, and each one of the army threw a stone upon his grave, so that a great pile was made. But afterwards, it is said, by command of the Pope, the Bishop of Cosenza took him from that grave, and sent him out of the kingdom, because it was Churth land. And he was buried by the river Verde, at the confines of the kingdom and the Campagna. This battle was on a Friday, the last day of February, in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty-five.”

Villani, who in his account of the battle copies Malispini almost literally, gives in another chapter, VI 46, the following portrait of Manfredi; but it must be remembered that Villani was a Guelph, and Manfredi a Ghibelline:⁠—

“King Manfredi had for his mother a beautiful lady of the family of the Marquises of Lancia in Lombardy, with whom the Emperor had an intrigue, and was beautiful in person, and like his father and more than his father was given to dissipation of all kinds. He was a musicianand singer, delighted in the company of buffoons and courtiers and beautiful concubines, and was always clad in green; he was generous and courteous, and of good demeanor, so that he was much beloved and gracious; but his life was wholly epicurean, hardly caring for God or the saints, but for the delights of the body. He was an enemy of holy Church, and of priests and monks, confiscating churches as his father had done; and a wealthy gentleman was he, both from the treasure which he inherited from the Emperor, and from King Conrad, his brother, and from his own kingdom, which was ample and fruitful, and which, so long as he lived, notwithstanding all the wars he had with the Church, he kept in good condition, so that it rose greatly in wealth and power, both by sea and by land.”

This battle of Benevento is the same as that mentioned Inferno XXVIII 16:⁠—

“At Ceperano, where a renegade
Was each Apulian.”

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Constance, wife of the Emperor Henry the Sixth. ↩

His daughter Constance, who was married to Peter of Aragon, and was the mother of Frederic of Sicily and of James of Aragon. ↩

The Bishop of Cosenza and Pope Clement the Fourth. ↩

The name of the river Verde reminds one of the old Spanish ballad, particularly when one recalls the fact that Manfredi had in his army a band of Saracens:⁠—

“Rio Verde, Rio Verde,
Many a corpse is bathed in thee,
Both of Moors and eke of Christians,
Slain with swords most cruelly.”

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Those who died “in contumely of holy Church,” or under excommunication, were buried with extinguished and inverted torches. ↩

Plato’s doctrine of three souls: the Vegetative in the liver; the Sensative in the heart; and the Intellectual in the brain. See Convito, IV 7. ↩

See Convito, II 14, quoted Note 1566. ↩

Sanleo, a fortress on a mountain in the duchy of Urbino; Noli, a town in the Genoese territory, by the seaside; Bismantova, a mountain in the duchy of Modena. ↩

Like Christian going up the hill Difficulty in Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress:⁠—

“I looked then after Christian to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running