DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0115
FEE makers of Florence.
95
many solitary wanderings, the hard life of a stranger
which he led here and there, in all kinds of temporary
interrupted sojournings, learning how hard it was to get
back when once driven out) and how salt was the bread of
others, and how steep the scale of a stranger’s bounty, he
came at last to a safe refuge, where all the world was
tender of the poet. Withdrawn altogether from all near-
ness and sight of Florence, from all possibility of straining
his exiled eyes for a sight of her, or wearing out his exile-
heard with fallacious sickness of deferred hope, he sank
into the melancholy old city, with its great mournful-eyed
mosaics, old even in Dante’s day, and its pines, through
which the wind swept with that mournful cadence which
is dear to all sad and musing souls. Guido of the Polen-
tini used his great guest better than splendid Cane of the
Scaligeri had done. He did not set him among buffoons
and jesters, or leave him to the poor office of a giudice, but
honored him at his own table and sent him upon princely
embassies, which no doubt recalled to the exile the day of
his early prosperity and statesmanship. One of these
missions took him to Venice, where he wrote certain lines
beneath an image of the Virgin, which are still preserved.
He is said also to have written a letter concerning the
condition and manners of the Venetians which would be
extremely severe and unfriendly if it were not almost
universally denounced as spurious. His son Pietro, the
eldest of his family, whom we have already seen in at-
tendance on him, and also the second, Jacopo, both joined
their father here, and he seems to have had many friend-
ships and correspondences which were pleasant to him.
By one of his correspondents, for instance, he was en-
treated to come to Bologna to receive there the crown of
poetry, an invitation which Dante seems to have evaded,
still dreaming, it would appear, of some sweeter acknowl-
edgment of his genius, some triumph which yet might be.
95
many solitary wanderings, the hard life of a stranger
which he led here and there, in all kinds of temporary
interrupted sojournings, learning how hard it was to get
back when once driven out) and how salt was the bread of
others, and how steep the scale of a stranger’s bounty, he
came at last to a safe refuge, where all the world was
tender of the poet. Withdrawn altogether from all near-
ness and sight of Florence, from all possibility of straining
his exiled eyes for a sight of her, or wearing out his exile-
heard with fallacious sickness of deferred hope, he sank
into the melancholy old city, with its great mournful-eyed
mosaics, old even in Dante’s day, and its pines, through
which the wind swept with that mournful cadence which
is dear to all sad and musing souls. Guido of the Polen-
tini used his great guest better than splendid Cane of the
Scaligeri had done. He did not set him among buffoons
and jesters, or leave him to the poor office of a giudice, but
honored him at his own table and sent him upon princely
embassies, which no doubt recalled to the exile the day of
his early prosperity and statesmanship. One of these
missions took him to Venice, where he wrote certain lines
beneath an image of the Virgin, which are still preserved.
He is said also to have written a letter concerning the
condition and manners of the Venetians which would be
extremely severe and unfriendly if it were not almost
universally denounced as spurious. His son Pietro, the
eldest of his family, whom we have already seen in at-
tendance on him, and also the second, Jacopo, both joined
their father here, and he seems to have had many friend-
ships and correspondences which were pleasant to him.
By one of his correspondents, for instance, he was en-
treated to come to Bologna to receive there the crown of
poetry, an invitation which Dante seems to have evaded,
still dreaming, it would appear, of some sweeter acknowl-
edgment of his genius, some triumph which yet might be.