DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0086
64
tHE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
to have haunted the neighborhood of their city, neglect-
ing all other objects in life, plotting, conspiring, fighting,
catching at every hope, hanging on to every possible enter-
prise, however hostile to Florence, which could by force or
fraud, or any how, push open an unguarded door. It is
strange and pitiful, and at the same time repulsive, to note
the passion and unscrupulousness of their struggle, their
carelessness as to who or what it was that should carry
them back. Love and longing, and a strange bitter patri-
otism, extraordinary as the word sounds in such a connec-
tion, were at the bottom of it all; but the patriotism
carried them into alliance with their country’s enemies,
and the love prompted reprisals of wrong and cruelty
which it is difficult for the calm spectator, so many gene-
rations off, to forgive. Dante’s first piece of apparent
work after the conclusion of his ambassadorship for
Florence, was an embassy of a very different description,
across the hills to Verona, to persuade Bartolommeo della
Scala to send a little army against Florence, four thousand
foot-soldiers and seven hundred cavalry, who came from
the banks of the Adige to help the fuor-usciti to ravage
the Mugello, but not to get back to their city. Another
armed attempt of the same kind was made a little later, in
a still less justifiable way. Pope Bonifazio died, and was
succeeded by Pope Benedetto who, after making the usual
ineffectual attempt to pacify the factions by means of a
cardinal-legate, called Corso Donati and his friends before
him to try what his personal intercession could do for the
new set of exiles. While the good pope was arguing at
Perugia with the Florentine leaders, thus taking them out
of the way, the exiles attempted to break into Florence, as
thieves break into a house from which the master is absent.
But, like all other attempts of these conspirators, this too
failed, and though they actually got within the gates, they
were driven back again, partly by their own folly, partly
tHE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
to have haunted the neighborhood of their city, neglect-
ing all other objects in life, plotting, conspiring, fighting,
catching at every hope, hanging on to every possible enter-
prise, however hostile to Florence, which could by force or
fraud, or any how, push open an unguarded door. It is
strange and pitiful, and at the same time repulsive, to note
the passion and unscrupulousness of their struggle, their
carelessness as to who or what it was that should carry
them back. Love and longing, and a strange bitter patri-
otism, extraordinary as the word sounds in such a connec-
tion, were at the bottom of it all; but the patriotism
carried them into alliance with their country’s enemies,
and the love prompted reprisals of wrong and cruelty
which it is difficult for the calm spectator, so many gene-
rations off, to forgive. Dante’s first piece of apparent
work after the conclusion of his ambassadorship for
Florence, was an embassy of a very different description,
across the hills to Verona, to persuade Bartolommeo della
Scala to send a little army against Florence, four thousand
foot-soldiers and seven hundred cavalry, who came from
the banks of the Adige to help the fuor-usciti to ravage
the Mugello, but not to get back to their city. Another
armed attempt of the same kind was made a little later, in
a still less justifiable way. Pope Bonifazio died, and was
succeeded by Pope Benedetto who, after making the usual
ineffectual attempt to pacify the factions by means of a
cardinal-legate, called Corso Donati and his friends before
him to try what his personal intercession could do for the
new set of exiles. While the good pope was arguing at
Perugia with the Florentine leaders, thus taking them out
of the way, the exiles attempted to break into Florence, as
thieves break into a house from which the master is absent.
But, like all other attempts of these conspirators, this too
failed, and though they actually got within the gates, they
were driven back again, partly by their own folly, partly