DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0090
68
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
Warlike and by peaceful means, to return to Florence, that
this disgust seems to have seized upon him. The squab-
bles, the vanities, the jealousies and grudgings, of his exiled
companions, revolted his loftier and more impetuous soul.
He had done what was in him to secure success to their
efforts, and for the third time they had failed miserably
from their own weakness and infirmity of purpose. Perhaps
the turning against him of his party described above had
to do with some reluctance on the part of the Scaligeri,
his friends, to renew the aid which they had formerly sent;
but anyhow after this last failure the party of fuor-usciti;
seems to have tumbled to pieces, and Dante, indignant and
wounded, forsook them and politics together, and turned
back to the pursuits which he had abandoned for that
thankless path of public life. He went to Bologna, no
doubt with much despiteful melancholy mingling in his
nobler desire for a practicable life, and resumed his long-
interrupted studies, giving himself over to philosophy, and
such comfort as she could bestow. He would seem to have
spent about two years in the learned city. His eldest
child, Pietro, a boy now about thirteen, came to him from
Florence, probably beginning his studies when his grave
father recommenced his; but we know nothing of the poet’s
intercourse with his children, nor can we guess what share
this little Florentine, fresh from his mother’s care, had in
the life or the thoughts of the imperious and melancholy
exile, embittered by the privations of his life and the con-
tradictions of men, who thus turned back to his books in
his moment of need, spurning, one cannot but feel, with
something of the scorn of wounded pride, the world and
the party which had not done justice to him. During the
following years of tranquillity and solitude, Dante wrote
the “Convito” and his Essay on Eloquence, two works
more valuable for the indications of himself to be found in
them than for their own excellence. The latter work, the
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
Warlike and by peaceful means, to return to Florence, that
this disgust seems to have seized upon him. The squab-
bles, the vanities, the jealousies and grudgings, of his exiled
companions, revolted his loftier and more impetuous soul.
He had done what was in him to secure success to their
efforts, and for the third time they had failed miserably
from their own weakness and infirmity of purpose. Perhaps
the turning against him of his party described above had
to do with some reluctance on the part of the Scaligeri,
his friends, to renew the aid which they had formerly sent;
but anyhow after this last failure the party of fuor-usciti;
seems to have tumbled to pieces, and Dante, indignant and
wounded, forsook them and politics together, and turned
back to the pursuits which he had abandoned for that
thankless path of public life. He went to Bologna, no
doubt with much despiteful melancholy mingling in his
nobler desire for a practicable life, and resumed his long-
interrupted studies, giving himself over to philosophy, and
such comfort as she could bestow. He would seem to have
spent about two years in the learned city. His eldest
child, Pietro, a boy now about thirteen, came to him from
Florence, probably beginning his studies when his grave
father recommenced his; but we know nothing of the poet’s
intercourse with his children, nor can we guess what share
this little Florentine, fresh from his mother’s care, had in
the life or the thoughts of the imperious and melancholy
exile, embittered by the privations of his life and the con-
tradictions of men, who thus turned back to his books in
his moment of need, spurning, one cannot but feel, with
something of the scorn of wounded pride, the world and
the party which had not done justice to him. During the
following years of tranquillity and solitude, Dante wrote
the “Convito” and his Essay on Eloquence, two works
more valuable for the indications of himself to be found in
them than for their own excellence. The latter work, the