The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [best thriller novels of all time TXT] 📗

countrymen, as hard, griping, and exacting; they were called Lombard dogs; hated and insulted by nations less acquainted with trade and certainly less civilized than themselves, when they may only have demanded a fair interest for money lent at a great risk to lawless men in a foreign country.⁠ ⁠… All countinghouses of Florentine bankers were confined to the old and new marketplaces, where alone they were allowed to transact business: before the door was placed a bench, and a table covered with carpet, on which stood their moneybags and account-book for the daily transactions of trade.”

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Simifonte, a village near Certaldo. It was captured by the Florentines, and made part of their territory, in 1202. ↩

In the valley of the Ombrone, east of Pistoia, are still to be seen the ruins of Montemurlo, once owned by the Counts Guidi, and by them sold to the Florentines in 1203, because they could not defend it against the Pistoians. ↩

The Pivier d’ Acone, or parish of Acone, is in the Val di Sieve, or Valley of the Sieve, one of the affluents of the Arno. Here the powerful family of the Cerchi had their castle of Monte di Croce, which was taken and destroyed by the Florentines in 1053, and the Cerchi and others came to live in Florence, where they became the leaders of the Parte Bianca. See Note 95. ↩

The Buondelmonti were a wealthy and powerful family of Valdigrieve, or Valley of the Grieve, which, like the Sieve, is an affluent of the Arno. They too, like the Cerchi, came to Florence, when their lands were taken by the Florentines, and were in a certain sense the cause of Guelf and Ghibelline quarrels in the city. See Note 137. ↩

The downfall of a great city is more swift and terrible than that of a smaller one; or, as Venturi interprets, “The size of the body and greater robustness of strength in a city and state are not helpful, but injurious to their preservation, unless men live in peace and without the blindness of the passions, and Florence, more poor and humble, would have flourished longer.”

Perhaps the best commentary of all is that contained in the two lines of Chaucer’s Troilus and Cresseide, II 1385⁠—aptly quoted by Mr. Gary:⁠—

“For swifter course cometh thing that is of wight,
Whan it descendeth, than done thinges light.”

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In this line we have in brief Dante’s political faith, which is given in detail in his treatise “De Monarchia.” ↩

Luni, an old Etruscan city in the Lunigiana; and Urbisaglia, a Roman city in the Marca d’ Ancona. ↩

Chiusi is in the Sienese territory, and Sinigaglia on the Adriatic, east of Rome. This latter place has somewhat revived since Dante’s time. ↩

Boccaccio seems to have caught something of the spirit of this canto, when, lamenting the desolation of Florence by the plague in 1348, he says in the Introduction to the Decameron:⁠—

“How many vast palaces, how many beautiful houses, how many noble dwellings, aforetime filled with lords and ladies and trains of servants, were now untenanted even by the lowest menial! How many memorable families, how many ample heritages, how many renowned possessions, were left without an heir! How many valiant men, how many beautiful women, how many gentle youths, breakfasted in the morning with their relatives, companions, and friends, and, when the evening came, supped with their ancestors in the other world!”

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Lowell, “To the Past”:⁠—

“Still as a city buried neath the sea,
Thy courts and temples stand;
Idle as forms on wind-waved tapestry
Of saints and heroes grand,
Thy phantasms grope and shiver,
Or watch the loose shores crumbling silently
Into Time’s gnawing river.”

“Our fathers,” says Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, V, “find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks.⁠ ⁠… Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day; and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment.” ↩

Shirley, “Death’s Final Conquest”:⁠—

“The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.”

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The lives of men are too short for them to measure the decay of things around them. ↩

It would be an unprofitable task to repeat in notes the names of these

“Great Florentines
Of whom the fame is hidden in the Past,”

and who flourished in the days of Cacciaguida and the Emperor Conrad. It will be better to follow Villani, as he points out with a sigh their dwellings in the old town, and laments over their decay. In his Cronica, Book IV, he speaks as follows:⁠—

“Ch. X. As already mentioned, the first rebuilding of Little Florence was divided by Quarters, that is, by four gates; and that we may the better make known the noble races and houses, which in those times, after Fiesole was destroyed, were great and powerful in Florence, we will enumerate them by the quarters where they lived.

“And first those