DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0023
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE
THE POET DANTE.
CHAPTER I.
HIS YOUTH.
It is a peculiarity of the great cities of Italy, that none
of them are capitals in the ordinary sense of the word-
types and representatives of the country, such as Paris is
of France, or London of England. The great centers of
old Italian life, Rome and Venice and Florence, are all as
distinct as individuals, incapable on the spur of the moment
—as has been demonstrated by recent experience—of being
trimmed into any breadth of nationality, or made to repre-
sent more than themselves—the one strongly-marked and
individual phase of character which their municipal sepa-
rateness and independent history have impressed upon
them. The action of time may fit Rome—once the mis-
tress, and still accustomed to feel herself in one sense the
capital, of the world—for becoming the capital of Italy;
but it is scarcely possible to conceive a combination of
circumstances which could have detached Florence from
her grandiose and austere personality and made of her a
national center. So long as her dark palaces cut their
stern outline against the sky, and her warlike tower lifts
itself high over the housetops, and the hills stand round
her in embattled lines, must the great city remain herself
THE POET DANTE.
CHAPTER I.
HIS YOUTH.
It is a peculiarity of the great cities of Italy, that none
of them are capitals in the ordinary sense of the word-
types and representatives of the country, such as Paris is
of France, or London of England. The great centers of
old Italian life, Rome and Venice and Florence, are all as
distinct as individuals, incapable on the spur of the moment
—as has been demonstrated by recent experience—of being
trimmed into any breadth of nationality, or made to repre-
sent more than themselves—the one strongly-marked and
individual phase of character which their municipal sepa-
rateness and independent history have impressed upon
them. The action of time may fit Rome—once the mis-
tress, and still accustomed to feel herself in one sense the
capital, of the world—for becoming the capital of Italy;
but it is scarcely possible to conceive a combination of
circumstances which could have detached Florence from
her grandiose and austere personality and made of her a
national center. So long as her dark palaces cut their
stern outline against the sky, and her warlike tower lifts
itself high over the housetops, and the hills stand round
her in embattled lines, must the great city remain herself