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

complete, should have been a soldier, before being a theologian, diplomatist, and poet. He was then twenty-four years of age. He himself described this battle in a letter, of which only a few lines remain. ‘At the battle of Campaldino,’ he says, ‘the Ghibelline party was routed and almost wholly slain. I was there, a novice in arms; I had great fear, and at last great joy, on account of the divers chances of the fight.’ One must not see in this phrase the confession of cowardice, which could have no place in a soul tempered like that of Alighieri. The only fear he had was lest the battle should be lost. In fact, the Florentines at first seemed beaten; their infantry fell back before the Aretine cavalry; but this first advantage of the enemy was its destruction, by dividing its forces. These were the vicissitudes of the battle to which Dante alludes, and which at first excited his fears, and then caused his joy.”

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The Convent of Camaldoli, thus described by Forsyth, Italy, p. 117:⁠—

“We now crossed the beautiful vale of Prato Vecchio, rode round the modest arcades of the town, and arrived at the lower convent of Camaldoli, just at shutting of the gates. The sun was set and every object sinking into repose, except the stream which roared among the rocks, and the convent-bells which were then ringing the Angelus.

“This monastery is secluded from the approach of woman in a deep, narrow, woody dell. Its circuit of dead walls, built on the conventual plan, gives it an aspect of confinement and defence; yet this is considered as a privileged retreat, where the rule of the order relaxes its rigor, and no monks can reside but the sick or the superannuated, the dignitary or the steward, the apothecary or the bead-turner. Here we passed the night, and next morning rode up by the steep traverses to the Santo Eremo, where Saint Romualdo lived and established

de’ tacenti cenobiti il coro,
L’ arcane penitenze, ed i digiuni
Al Camaldoli suo.

“The Eremo is a city of hermits, walled round, and divided into streets of low, detached cells. Each cell consists of two or three naked rooms, built exactly on the plan of the Saint’s own tenement, which remains just as Romualdo left it eight hundred years ago; now too sacred and too damp for a mortal tenant.

“The unfeeling Saint has here established a rule which anticipates the pains of Purgatory. No stranger can behold without emotion a number of noble, interesting young men bound to stand erect chanting at choir for eight hours a day; their faces pale, their heads shaven, their beards shaggy, their backs raw, their legs swollen, and their feet bare. With this horrible institute the climate conspires in severity, and selects from society the best constitutions. The sickly novice is cut off in one or two winters, the rest are subject to dropsy, and few arrive at old age.”

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Where the Archiano loses its name by flowing into the Arno. ↩

Epistle of Jude, 9:⁠—

“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said. The Lord rebuke thee.”

And Jeremy Taylor, speaking of the pardon of sin, says:⁠—

“And while it is disputed between Christ and Christ’s enemy who shall be Lord, the pardon fluctuates like the wave, striving to climb the rock, and is washed off like its own retinue, and it gets possession by time and uncertainty, by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression.”

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Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I ch. 107:⁠—

“Then arise vapors like unto smoke, and mount aloft in air, where little by little they gather and grow, until they become dark and dense, so that they take away the sight of the sun; and these are the clouds; but they never are so dark as to take away the light of day; for the sun shines through them, as if it were a candle in a lantern, which shines outwardly, though it cannot itself be seen. And when the cloud has waxed great, so that it can no longer support the abundance of water, which is there as vapor, it must needs fall to earth, and that is the rain.”

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In Ephesians 2:2, the evil spirit is called “the prince of the power of the air.”

Compare also Inferno XXIII 16,

“If anger upon evil will be grafted.”

and Inferno XXXI 55,

“For where the argument of intellect
Is added unto evil will and power,
No rampart can the people make against it.”

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This Pratomagno is the same as the Prato Vecchio mentioned in Note 595. The “great yoke” is the ridge of the Apennines.

Dr. Barlow, Study of Dante, p. 199, has this note on the passage:⁠—

“When rain falls from the upper region of the air, we observe at a considerable altitude a thin light veil, or a hazy turbidness; as this increases, the lower clouds become diffused in it, and form a uniform sheet. Such is the stratus cloud described by Dante (V 115) as covering the valley from Pratomagno to the ridge on the opposite side above Camaldoli. This cloud is a widelyextended horizontal sheet of vapor, increasing from below, and lying on or near the earth’s surface. It is properly the cloud of night, and first appears about sunset, usually in autumn; it comprehends creeping mists and fogs which ascend from the bottom of valleys, and from the surface of lakes and rivers, in consequence of air colder than that of the surface descending and mingling with it, and from the air over the adjacent land cooling down more rapidly than that over the water, from which increased evaporation is taking place,”

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Milton, Paradise Lost, IV 500:⁠—

“As Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he