Serravalle, Bishop of Fermo in the early years of the fifteenth century, who translated the "Commedia" into Latin, and wrote a commentary on it. In this he says of Dante (I quote from Fraticelli's "Vita di Dante," p. 177): "Anagogice dilexit theologiam sacram, in quâ diu studuit tam in Oxoniis in regno Angliæ, quam Parisiis in regno Franciæ, et fuit Baccalaureus in Universitate Parisiensi in quâ legit sententias pro forma magisterii." Here again we have a statement, written in A.D. 1414, and therefore within a century after Dante's death, which, even if it stood alone, might have a fair claim to credit. There are, however, one or two circumstances connected with the Bishop of Fermo which have been overlooked by most commentators, and which give, as I venture to think, a special significance to his testimony. He attended the Council of Constance in A.D. 1414, and while he was there he made his translation of the "Commedia,” at the request of the Bishops of Bath and Salisbury, who had come to attend the Council as representatives of the English Church (Collier's "Church History," bk. vii.). Here, then, we have at least the fact that men in high places in England were so attracted by the name and fame of Dante that they wished to become acquainted with his great poem. Is it not a tenable hypothesis that they brought with them memories of the traditions of their own university life, and that the statement of the Bishop of Fermo as to Dante's sojourn in Oxford may be traceable to Oxford as its source? (3.) Can we find any corroborative evidence in Dante's writings of this visit to England, as we have found it in the case of Paris? Here, too, the evidence has the character of strong circumstantial probability. If, with all Dante-students, we trace the poet's travels in his vivid pictures of the tombs at Arles (Inferno, ix. 112), of the arsenals in Venice (Inferno, xxi. 7), and, as we have seen, of the "vico degli strami" at Paris, we can scarcely be wrong in finding a like trace in the description of the coast of Flanders : "Quale i Fiamminghi tra Guzzante e Brugia Temendo il fiotto che in ver lo s'aventa Inferno, xv. 4-6. [E'en as twixt Bruges and Guzzant* Flemings make, Fearing the flood that on their sea-beach rose, But what, we may ask, could have drawn the poet, bent on seeking culture, to a region so unattractive? There were no schools of art or philosophy there; no "master of those who know," at whose feet he could sit and gather knowledge. Is it not probable that he found himself there only in transitu, as a convenient quarter from which he could take ship and make his way to England? Nor are the traces of the English wanderings far to seek. The Abbey of Westminster would be I content myself with transliterating the name, leaving the question whether Dante meant Ghent, or Cadsand, near Bruges, or Wissant, near Calais. among the first places which the traveller would visit, and in that Abbey there was a relic which would connect itself in Dante's mind with an event which, when he was yet a child (A.D. 1271), had sent a thrill of horror through the whole of Italy. Guy de Montfort, son of the Earl of Leicester, had assassinated Prince Henry of England, son of Richard Earl of Cornwall, at Viterbo, as he was in the act of receiving the consecrated Host, and had dragged the bleeding carcase through the church. The body of the victim was embalmed and brought to England, and was interred in the Abbey of Hayles. The heart was put into a golden vase, and placed on the tomb of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey (Barlow's "Contributions to the Study of the Commedia," p. 125). Is it not natural, with these facts before us, to see in the words with which the Centaur, who is the poet's guide in one stage of the Inferno, speaks of Guy de Montfort "Colui fesse in grembo a Dio Le cor che 'n sul Tamigi ancor si cola." [One spirit by itself he bade me note, Inferno, xii. 120. And said, "In God's own lap he pierced the heart, Which now finds honour where the Thames doth float."] -a personal reminiscence of the emotions with which he had gazed upon the memorable relic? analogous explanation. Henry III. Other passages at least admit naturally of an The reverence with which he speaks of The reverence "Vedete il Re della semplice vita, Seder là solo Arrigo d'Inghilterra; Questo ha ne' rami suoi migliore uscita." Purgatorio, vii. 130-2 [See ye the king, alone 'mid all the host, Pure simple Henry, wearing England's crown; the allusion to the wars between Edward I. and Balliol "Li si vedrà la superbia ch' asseta, Che fa lo Scotto e l' Inghilese folle, Sì che non puo soffrir dentro a sua meta." Paradiso, xix. 121-3. [There shall be seen the pride that thirsts for gain, the insight which he shows into the source and character of the hostility between Henry II. and his favourite son— "E perchè tu di me novella parti, Seppe ch' io son Bertram dal Bornio, quelle Ch' al Re giovane diedi i ma' conforti." Inferno, xxviii. 133-5. [And that thou may'st true news report of me, the introduction into the Paradiso (x. 131) of the pre-eminently English scholar, Bede-these are, all of them, phenomena which, though singly they prove nothing, converge to the same conclusion. If that conclusion be accepted as so far, at least, probable, there remains the further question, "To what period of Dante's life are we to assign this visit to England, this stay at Oxford ?" For the most part the biographers agree in employing the poet's more extended wanderings to fill up the gaps presented by the scanty records of the years of his exile. I agree, however, with Wegele ("Leben Dantes," p. 94), in thinking that they come far more naturally and probably into a much earlier period of his life. One whose goods had been confiscated-who was dependent on the patronage of this or that noble at Verona or Ravenna for bare subsistence-who had learnt [How salt the taste of bread thou then shalt know, was hardly likely to have the means for such extended journeys. He appears, it may be, too frequently on the Italian scene of action during those years for the supposition that he undertook these longer and more arduous journeys. If he had undertaken them, they would scarcely have been passed over in the prophetic summary of his wanderings which he puts into the mouth of Cacciaguida, in Paradiso xvii. Lastly, it may be added that such journeys, undertaken for the sake of study, belong, in the nature of things, rather to the ardour of youth pursuing knowledge, and sitting at the feet of the great "masters of those who know," than to the ripeness of age, when the scholar feels that he has completed his work of self-culture, and devotes himself for long years together to the great task-work of his life. On all these grounds, then, it seems probable that the Paris and Oxford period of Dante's life must be placed before his exile. It falls in with that conclusion that Sigieri, of whom he speaks with a reverence which evidently implies personal knowledge, died before A.D. 1300, and that the incident to which he refers in the life of Pierre de la Brosse, who was put to death by Philip le Bel, in A.D. 1276 (Purgatorio, vi. 22), was more likely to have impressed itself on the mind of one who was in Paris as a student in the last decade of the thirteenth century than it would have been twenty years later. And there is a period in Dante's life in which these distant travellings would have come naturally, almost liecessarily, as a relief to a great sorrow. The absolute silence which Dante preserves from first to last as to the marriage of Beatrice, though he dwells repeatedly, both in the "Vita Nuova" and in the Commedia," on her death, shows how deeply he felt what must, at the time, unless his nature was different from that of other men, have been a crushing blow to all his hopes and aspirations for the future. Of that sorrow he would never speak, would strive not even to think, though, doubtless, with him as with others, the very effort at suppression did but intensify his anguish. Had Beatrice passed into a matronlike Donna dei Bardi, with children and children's children round her, later generations might probably have never heard her name. It was not till death had united what the mariage de convenance had parted, and he felt that she was his, once more and for ever, in a transfigured and glorified beauty, to be worshipped with a purified and profounder love, that he could bring himself to record the birth and growth of his earlier passion. And even then, as we know throughout the "Vita Nuova," the marriage itself is absolutely ignored, and treated as though it had not been. On any estimate of psychological probabilities it was almost a matter of necessity that one suffering as Dante must have suffered should seek relief in travel and in study, as a thousand others have done in like conditions. То pace the streets even of his beloved Florence and to see his Beatrice as the wife of another would make life intolerable. He was young. His father was dead, and had left him with ample means. It was the fashion of the time for young men in Italy, as in other countries, to complete their education by attending for some few months, now at this and now at that University. His master, Brunetto Latini, had recently returned from Paris, where he had sought an asylum during the dominance of the Ghibelline party, and the memorable "Tesoro," or "Trésor," which had been written in French, may at once have served to initiate his pupil in the study of that language, and laid open to his view the wide field of an encyclopædaic knowledge de omni scibili, on which he might thus enter. The marriage of Beatrice took place before 1287, when she is named as married in her father's will. She died in June (possibly December), 1290. The battle of Campaldino, the first event after her marriage in which Dante is known to have taken part, was in June, 1289. We have thus an interval of at least two years, probably, indeed, three, unaccounted for, and, on the grounds given above, I offer the hypothesis that they were spent in travel as the most tenable explanation of the silence of the records. The incidental notices that have been already referred to help us almost to construct an itinerary of his progress. Assuming Paris to have been his first destination out of Italy, the most natural route for him would have been to make his way by land or sea from Florence to Marseilles. The former would take him through the regions of the Maritime Alps, and so give him the experience of the mountain phenomena the chasms and ravines, the snow falling on a windless day, which he describes so vividly in the Inferno (xii. 1-9, xiv. 30). There he would be attracted to the memorable scene at Arles, the wide-spread plain looking like a vast cemetery, which furnished the archetype of one bolge of the Inferno (Inferno, ix. 112). Thence he would journey up the valley of the Rhone, with its affluents, the Isère and the Saône, and so to that of the Seine (Paradiso, vi. 58–60), and so to Paris. Here we may reasonably assume a stay of some months, during which the young Florentine student would be attending the teaching of the school in the Rue du Fouarre, where Sigieri, of the "eternal light," delivered his prelections. There, if we compare his own language in the Inferno (xv. 106) with that of Roger Bacon in the "Compendium Studii," he may have been led to see how little the culture even of the great scholars of the time availed to save them from unutterable baseness. But to him, as to other students of the thirteenth and of other centuries, there came the desire to pass on "To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new;" and the twofold lines of study, in both of which Dante sought and attained pre-eminence, would naturally determine his next movements. As a metaphysician and theologian, he would be led to seek the schools which the great Albert had founded at Cologne (Albert himself had died in A.D. 1280), and as a student of physical science, perhaps, also, as seeking for such knowledge of Greek as might be attainable, he would be drawn to the yet greater Franciscan, who, after having filled Paris with wonder at his indomitable industry and his marvellous experiments and his wide-spread research, and had shared the common fate of those who proclaim "invidiosi veri,” had a little before been released from imprisonment and allowed to return to his beloved Oxford. Of the travels to which this desire led we have sufficiently distinct traces in the "Commedia." He had looked on the Rhine with all the emotion which belonged to it as the scene of Cæsar's triumphs (Paradiso, vi. 5-8). He had been at Cologne, and had seen the "Cappucci bassi Dinanzi agli occhi, fatte del taglia Che per li monaci in Cologna fassi." Inferno, xxiii. 61-63. [Cloaks had they with hoods low, o'er eyes and face, He had learnt to place Albert of Cologne on a level with the great Thomas of Aquinum (Paradiso, x. 98). As he made his way thence to England he would pass, as we have seen, through the country between Cadsand and Bruges, which he describes so vividly. The ship which bore him up the Thames would bring him under the shadow of the great Abbey, in which was the heart of the young Prince whose murder had filled Italy with horror, and which gains a fresh interest, in addition to all its many memories of the past, from the thought that Dante may have trod its aisles. There the memory of "the king of simple life" |