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

it he? Is it Sordello the Troubadour, or Sordello the Podestà of Verona? or are they one and the same person? After much research, it is not easy to decide the question, and to

“Single out
Sordello, compassed murkily about
With ravage of six long sad hundred years.”

Yet as far as it is possible to learn it from various conflicting authorities,

“Who will may hear Sordello’s story told.”

Dante, in his treatise De Volgari Eloquio, I 15, speaks of Sordello ot Mantua as “a man so choice in his language, that not only in his poems, but in whatever way he spoke, he abandoned the dialect of his province.” But here there is no question of the Proven9al in which Sordello the Troubadour wrote, but only of Italian dialects in comparison with the universal and cultivated Italian, which Dante says “belongs to all the Italian cities, and seems to belong exclusively to none.” In the same treatise, II 13, he mentions a certain Gotto of Mantua as the author of many good songs; and this Gotto is supposed to be Sordello, as Sordello was born at Goïto in the province of Mantua. But would Dante in the same treatise allude to the same person under different names? Is not this rather the Sordel de Goi, mentioned by Raynouard, Choix de Poésies Originales des Troubadours, V 445?

In the old Provençal manuscript quoted by Raynouard, Choix de Poésies Originales des Troubadours, V 444, Sordello’s biography is thus given:⁠—

“Sordello was a Mantuan of Sirier, son of a poor knight, whose name was Sir El Cort. And he delighted in learning songs and in making them, and rivalled the good men of the court as far as possible, and wrote love-songs and satires. And he came to the court of the Count of Saint Boniface, and the Count honored him greatly, and by way of pastime (a forma de solatz) he fell in love with the wife of the Count, and she with him. And it happened that the Count quarrelled with her brothers, and became estranged from her. And her brothers, Sir Icellis and Sir Albrics, persuaded Sir Sordello to run away with her; and he came to live with them in great content. And afterwards he went into Provence, and received great honor from all good men, and from the Count and Countess, who gave him a good castle and a gentlewoman for his wife.”

Citing this passage, Millot, Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours, II 80, goes on to say:⁠—

“This is all that our manuscripts tell us of Sordello. According to Agnelli and Platina, historians of Mantua, he was of the house of the Visconti of that city; valiant in deeds of arms, famous in jousts and tournaments, he won the love of Beatrice, daughter of Ezzelin da Romano, Lord of the Marca Trevigiana, and married her; he governed Mantua as Podestà and Captain-General; and though son-in-law of the tyrant Ezzelin, he always opposed him, being a great lover of justice.

“We find these facts cited by Crescimbeni, who says that Sordello was the lord of Goïto; but as they are not applicable to our poet, we presume they refer to a warrior of the same name, and perhaps of a different family.

“Among the pieces of Sordello, thirty-four in number, there are some fifteen songs of gallantry, though Nostrodamus says that all his pieces turn only upon philosophic subjects.”

Nostrodamus’s account, as given by Crescimbeni, L’Istoria Della Volgar Poesia, II 105, is as follows:⁠—

“Sordello was a Mantuan poet, who surpassed in Provençal song Calvo, Folchetto of Marseilles, Lanfranco Cicala, Percival Doria, and all the other Genoese and Tuscan poets, who took far greater delight in our Provençal tongue, on account of its sweetness, than in their own maternal language. This poet was very studious, and exceeding eager to know all things, and as much as any one of his nation excellent in learning as well as in understanding and in prudence. He wrote several beautiful songs, not indeed of love, for not one of that kind is found among his works, but on philosophic subjects. Raymond Belinghieri, the last Count of Provence of that name, in the last days of his life, (the poet being then but fifteen years of age,) on account of the excellence of his poetry and the rare invention shown in his productions, took him into his service, as Pietro di Castelnuovo, himself a Proven9al poet, informs us. He also wrote various satires in the same language, and among others one in which he reproves all the Christian princes; and it is composed in the form of a funeral song on the death of Blancasso.”

In the Histoire Littéraire de la France, XIX 452, Eméric-David, after discussing the subject at length, says:⁠—

“Who then is this Sordello, haughty and superb, like a lion in repose⁠—this Sordello, who, in cmbyacing Virgil, gives rise to this sudden explosion of the patriotic sentiments of Dante? Is it a singer of love and gallantry? Impossible. This Sordello is the old Podestà of Mantua, as decided a Ghibelline as Dante himself; and Dante utters before him sentiments which he well knows the zealous Ghibclline will share. And what still more confirms our judgment is, that Sordello embraces the knees of Virgil, exclaiming, ‘O glory of the Latians,’ etc. In this admiration, in this love of the Latin tongue, we still see the Podestà, the writer of Latin; we do not see the Troubadour.”

Benvenuto calls Sordello a “noble and prudent knight,” and “a man of singular virtue in the world, though of impenitent life,” and tells a story he has heard of him and Cunizza, but does not vouch for it. “Ezzelino,” he says, “had a sister greatly addicted to the pleasures of love, concerning whom much is said in the ninth Canto of Paradiso. She, being enamored of Sordello, had cautiously contrived that he should visit her at night by a