DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0044
22
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
Guido’s life lasted—friends so close and intimate that the
poet felt himself entitled to make old Cavalcanti start
from his burning tomb at the sound of his name, looking
for the inseparable companion who on that great journey
was not with him. It is but little more that we know of
this noble Guido. He appears in the traditions and
histories of his time always in an interesting and attrac-
tive light, but with few details. He was “ a gentle,
courteous, and ardent youth,” says Dino Compagni,
“ but disdainful (sdegnoso) and solitary, and intent on
study.” “ Besides this, he was one of the best lawyers in
the world,” adds Boccaccio, “and an excellent natural
philosopher; he was lively and gracious, and loved to talk
(gparlante huomd)’, and everything that he wished to do
which was becoming to a gentleman he could do better
than any other man; and besides this he was very rich
.But because Guido sometimes in his specula-
tions became very abstracted among men, and because he
to some degree held the doctrines of the Epicureans, it was
said by the vulgar that his speculations were all made with
the hope of finding that there was no God. Whether this
reproach was true or not cannot now be decided; but the
aninio sdegnoso appears in some of the stories told of him,
and specially in that one of Boccaccio’s novels where he is
represented as leaping scornfully over one of the sar-
cophagi which surrounded San Giovanni, in order to escape
from a band of revelers who pursued him with their im-
portunities, entreating him to join them; whom he
answered by telling them that they in their uselessness
and folly were at home there among the dead, while he
‘ solitary and intent on study,’ belonged to the living.”
Guido was married to the daughter of Earinata degli
Uberti, the great Ghibelline chief, whom Dante associates
with the elder Cavalcanti in the “Inferno”—one of those
marriages so continually recurring in mediaeval times by
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
Guido’s life lasted—friends so close and intimate that the
poet felt himself entitled to make old Cavalcanti start
from his burning tomb at the sound of his name, looking
for the inseparable companion who on that great journey
was not with him. It is but little more that we know of
this noble Guido. He appears in the traditions and
histories of his time always in an interesting and attrac-
tive light, but with few details. He was “ a gentle,
courteous, and ardent youth,” says Dino Compagni,
“ but disdainful (sdegnoso) and solitary, and intent on
study.” “ Besides this, he was one of the best lawyers in
the world,” adds Boccaccio, “and an excellent natural
philosopher; he was lively and gracious, and loved to talk
(gparlante huomd)’, and everything that he wished to do
which was becoming to a gentleman he could do better
than any other man; and besides this he was very rich
.But because Guido sometimes in his specula-
tions became very abstracted among men, and because he
to some degree held the doctrines of the Epicureans, it was
said by the vulgar that his speculations were all made with
the hope of finding that there was no God. Whether this
reproach was true or not cannot now be decided; but the
aninio sdegnoso appears in some of the stories told of him,
and specially in that one of Boccaccio’s novels where he is
represented as leaping scornfully over one of the sar-
cophagi which surrounded San Giovanni, in order to escape
from a band of revelers who pursued him with their im-
portunities, entreating him to join them; whom he
answered by telling them that they in their uselessness
and folly were at home there among the dead, while he
‘ solitary and intent on study,’ belonged to the living.”
Guido was married to the daughter of Earinata degli
Uberti, the great Ghibelline chief, whom Dante associates
with the elder Cavalcanti in the “Inferno”—one of those
marriages so continually recurring in mediaeval times by