ILLUSTRIOUS FLORENTINES

I MUST now, turning aside from the Renaissance movement, say something about the men who contributed the most towards its development, not only in Florence and throughout Tuscany, but at Rome as well, whither many of them were summoned by the popes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

I will only speak of those who were born in Florence itself, though to many who were natives of other parts of Italy that city was a second home. Upon the other hand, it will be seen that a native of Tuscany, Leonardo da Vinci, who takes rank with Dante and Michael Angelo, was almost a stranger in his own country, which possesses none of his greatest works, and he is even claimed as one of their own by another school. The name of those men of genius, exclusive of the artists, who gave Florence her unrivalled position, is Legion, beginning with Dante and ending with Galileo. The most illustrious were Petrarch, Boccaccio, Marcilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli, Brunelleschi, Politian, Alberti, Savonarola that is to say, historians, poets, artists, and philosophers while inferior to them in talent, but still worthy of mention as having taken part in the great movement of the time, are Coluccio Salutati, Passavanti, Giovanni Villani, Franco Sacchetti, Bonaccorso Pitti, Landino, Guicciardini, and the grand secretaries of the Republic, Leonardo Bruni and Carlo Marsuppini. I will endeavor to describe the special characteristics and individual part played by each one of these in the mighty movement of his age.

The most illustrious thinkers and writers of the fifteenth century remain, so to speak, unknown, so far as their fleshly representation goes, for very few portraits were painted in those days. The beautiful but stern face of Dante was, however, handed down to posterity by Giotto in a fresco unfortunately so dimmed by age and blurred by an inartistic restoration that the features are very indistinct. There is a fresco of Pico della Mirandola as a child by Luini; and Alberti, who was the friend of many of the medallionists, lives in the likeness of him by Matteo da Pasti; in another at Rimini, over the tomb of Sigismund Malatesta; and in two bronzes, one presented to the Louvre Gallery by His de la Salle, and the other in the Dreyfus Collection.

The great medallionists of the fifteenth century have transmitted to us the features of Cosimo the Elder, Lorenzo, and of several other members of the Medici family, and there are still extant some very perfect busts by Benedetto da Majano, Mino da Fie-sole, Desiderio da Settignano, and Benvenuto Cellini. But from contemporary art in the strict sense of the term, from which one would prefer to have the portraits of all these celebrities, there is but little to be derived. The fifteenth century cannot, as I have said, boast of any portrait painters except Piero della Francesca and Pollaiolo ; though fifty years afterwards, when the art of printing, recently discovered, favored the spread of learning, a few artists illustrated the biographies which were published. The sixteenth century gives us a wider choice of subjects, the Pitti and Uffizi Palaces containing many pictures by contemporary masters, those by Bronzino being almost entirely confined to the Medici family ; while a careful search of the principal collections, museums, and libraries in Europe reveals likenesses of the most celebrated masters and artists of the day.

DANTE. -(1265-1321.)

Dante, as is well known, died in exile, and the monument afterwards erected to him by the people of Florence in the Pantheon of Santa Croce does not contain his bones ; while the tomb at Ravenna in which he is buried was only built after his death by a Venetian, the proveditore of Ravenna, as an homage to the greatest of Italian poets. Cacciaguida, whose name is recorded in the history of Tuscany as having taken part in the Crusade of 1147, had a son Alighieri, and he in 1265 became the father of the future author of the "Divine Comedy."

An ancient custom prevailed in Florence of celebrating the coming of May every year a subject treated by many of the miniature painters of the time, under the title of "Primavera." On May-day the whole city kept holiday. The maidens, arrayed in white and with the May blossoms in their hands, formed long processions and danced on the sprouting grass, the young men joining in the pastime; and while the first day of summer was dedicated to the Virgin, the return of fine weather and the budding of the flowers was celebrated after the ancient rites. It was on. May-day that Alighieri took his son to the house of a neighbor, Folco de Portinari, who had invited all the children of his friends. Here it was that he met Beatrice, then only nine years of age, gay and beautiful in her childish fashion, and he received her image into his heart with so much affection that it never again departed from him. Eighteen years afterwards he wrote the "Vita Nuova," and Beatrice had died in the flower of youth. Full of melancholy, oppressed by persecution, and surrounded by enemies, he collected his thoughts about him to record the recollections of the beautiful vision in which she appeared to him "clothed in noble crimson," simple, candid, and gentle. He tells us how to look at her made a man pure and good, and this youthful passion shed its influence upon his whole future life.

Dante lost his father in childhood. He studied under the celebrated Brunetto Latini, the secretary of the commune and the author of the "Tesoro " and the Tesoretto." At eighteen the poetic instinct awoke in him, and later he wrote that strange love-dream of which Beatrice was the heroine. He related his dream to several of the master-poets of the day, some of them, such as Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia, replying to him in kindly and encouraging terms, while one or two, including Dante da Majano, treated him as moon-struck, and advised him to take a dose of hellebore.

From 1283 to 1289 Dante wrote almost incessantly, conscious of his own powers, and having already, we are told, conceived the plan of the work which was to immortalize his name. But he was oppressed by melancholy, often retiring into the convent of the Benedictines, and meditating, to all appearance, the assumption of holy orders. Political disturbances, however, called him back to practical life, and as this was a time when it was necessary for a man to side with one or other of the contending factions, he enrolled himself beneath the banner of the Guelphs, and in 1289 was present at the battle of Campaldino and the victory of Arezzo.

Veri de Cerchi, the captain of the Florentine horse, before the engagement became general, decided that twelve picked men should attack the enemy, and as those who took part in this attack were almost certain to fall, he named first himself, then his son, and then his two nephews, calling upon " those who love their country to come forward and prove it by making up the required number." A hundred and fifty men volunteered, and among was Dante.

Upon the 9th of June, 1290, Dante, then five-and twenty, received the tidings of the death of Beatrice. The thought of her had sustained him in life ; she was his pole-star and hope ; but though the blow was a terrible one, he bore it in silence, only giving expression to it six months afterwards in the canzone, As his heart did not, much to his surprise, cease to beat, he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and theology, making himself familiar with the Greek and Latin authors, and for the next two years we know that he was engrossed in literary labors to the exclusion of politics. In 1292 he married Gemma den Donati, to whom though strangely enough her name is never once mentioned in his poems he became very much attached. In the year of his marriage he renewed his connection with public affairs, was elected to the Government Council as Prior in 1300, sent in the following year on an embassy to Boniface VTIL, and becoming involved in one of those revolutions which favored now Guelph and now Ghibelline, incurred, in the year 1302, the penalty of exile. Now began his nineteen years of wandering through Italy, staying first with Bartolommeo delta Scala at Verona, then at Padua, and then at Castelnuovo, where he acted as mediator between Malespina and the Bishop of Luni. It was then that he tasted the bitter bread of exile, as he says ; but he did not suffer in silence, and it was at this period that he wrote the " Convito " and the discourses known as the "Volgare Eloquio." Brokenhearted, and yearning with love for Florence, his ungrateful country, he cannot reconcile himself to the thought of living away from her, and with a mingling of hope and despair he weeps and almost implores that he may be allowed to return.

It seemed at one time as if his prayer would be heard, and he hoped to hasten its fulfilment by dedicating one of his works to the Emperor Henry VII.

In January, 1311, Robert, King of Naples, was proclaimed King of Italy, but the Guelph cities refused to recognize him and Tuscany and the Romagna joined in a league against him. The Florentines allied themselves with Lodi, Cremona, Brescia, Milan, Pavia, and Piacenza, and it took the King six months to establish his power. He captured Piacenza, Cremona, Brescia, and Pavia, handing them over to governors, who showed them no mercy, and then proceeded to subjugate Tuscany. It was at this critical period that Florence opened her gates to most of the exiles, but the exclusion of the leaders dashed all Dante's hopes to the ground. He was then at the Court of the Polentas at Ravenna, with. Guido Novello, as we know by the date of a canzone on the death of the Emperor Henry VIL, dedicated to Guido.

In 1314 he was at Lucca, as the guest of Uguccione della Faggiuola, and it was there that he forgot his ideal passion in the arms of a lady named Gentucca.

It was an ancient custom that on the festival of St. John certain criminals should receive their pardon, offering themselves to the saint, candle in hand, and paying a fine. A strenuous attempt was made to induce Dante to end his exile in this way, but to the foolish priest who conducted the negotiation he made the indignant reply:

Is this how I am to be recalled to my country after three lustres of exile ? Is this to be the recompense of my innocence? Is this the reward of my continued labor and study ? Far from a man familiar with philosophy be such base cowardice! This is not how an exile should come back. Another way might surely be found which would not derogate from my fame. But if by this way only can I enter Florence, never again shall I see it. And what then ? Shall I not still see the sun and the stars, and ponder the sweet truth, without first giving myself in ignominy to the Florentine people ? No; I would not do it if I were starving."