peror Albert dying in the May of the year 1308, left the Imperial crown to be contended for by Charles of Anjou and Henry Prince of Luxembourg. Should the prize fall to the former, it was very evident that the ruin of the Cerchi and their adherents would be decided beyond reversal; should Henry, on the contrary, succeed, they might fairly look for the most prosperous change in their circumstances. This was not a season for inactivity, and the anxious mind of Dante appears to have been roused to the most energetic exertion. He had already more than once addressed letters to the people of Florence, claiming their consideration of his unjust persecution; he had also sent epistles to various princes and to the Roman Senate, requesting their support in his endeavour to gain a reversal of his sentence and that of his colleagues. He now repeated his appeals with tenfold force, urging the claims of the Duke of Luxembourg to the Imperial crown with astonishing vigour and courage; he also wrote to Henry himself exhorting him to persevere in his pursuit, and assuring him of the loyal affection with which he expected his elevation to the throne. The effect of this constant excitement of his mind was to make him be lieve that all his hopes of better times were now on the point of being realized, as he intimates towards the conclusion of the Commedia, which it is hence argued was finished about this time or a little later.* To be ready at the first warning or summons from the new Emperor, he took up his quarters in the little town of Toscanella, and from thence dispatched another letter to the same august personage. To his great joy the accession of Henry was at length proclaimed, and the imperial army was shortly after on its way to Florence. But he had placed his trust on a reed; the Emperor had neither sufficient at stake in the expedition, nor sufficient energy to pursue it if it had been otherwise; finding the city better defended than he had expected, he halted before he arrived within sight of the walls, and then drew off his army to pursue measures more within the compass of his designs. The last glimmering of hope was now fast expiring, and was totally extinguished the following year, 1313, by Henry's untimely death, which happened on the eleventh of April. No one suffered more than Dante from this event, as no one, perhaps, had been more elevated * Paradiso, can. 30. v. 133. Pelli. Tiraboschi. with the prospect of better times, or done more to produce them. Besides the letters above alluded to, he wrote his famous treatise De Monarchia, to encourage the partizans of the Emperor and make converts to his cause. But these labours produced no other effect than a third condemnation of the ill-starred author, who is supposed shortly after the death of Henry to have left Italy for some time. Most accounts of Dante mention his having passed a short period of his exile in Paris; by some writers* the visit is dated earlier, but it is generally believed that it took place at the time of which we are now speaking. The French capital, in the thirteenth century, was the resort of the profoundest scholars in Europe, and its university was celebrated as the first seat of theological learning and philosophy. The period that our poet spent there was not unoccupied. By the study of his whole life he was qualified for treating the abstrusest subjects with which the subtle literature of that scholastic age was conversant; and as public disputations were then common in all the universities of Europe, he supported, it is said, several theses on subjects connected with theology and logic. How long he remained at Paris is unknown, as Boccaccio, Filelfo. is also the place of his sojourn immediately on his return to Italy. Verona, however, is supposed to have been, as in former years, the centre of his wanderings; and this idea is in some measure confirmed by the statement that he held a public disputation there in 1320, in the church of St. Helen, on the elements of earth and water, his supposed thesis respecting which was published at Venice in the early part of the sixteenth century, but the authenticity of this work has been disputed.* We now approach the period when the wanderings of Dante were to cease. In the same year in which he is reported to have disputed at Verona, he removed to Ravenna, the lordship of Guido Novello da Polenta, a nobleman of singular liberality, and the father of the unfortunate Francesca di Rimini.† The fame of our poet was already widely spread; the share he had taken in public affairs recommended him to many, his long exile acquired him the sympathy of more, and the noble talents he had exhibited made him admired and respected by all but his fierce and implacable fellow-citizens. The generous and accomplished Guido felt himself honoured by the presence of such a man in his court; his fondness, also, for the pursuits which employed his guest, Inferno, can. v. v. 73. * Tiraboschi. made him seek his companionship; and the intimacy thus produced and cemented, and in little danger of being disturbed by caprice on either side, was productive of good to both. Guido possessed the society of the greatest man Italy had produced, and Dante, after a life of wandering and unceasing anxiety, enjoyed towards its termination a brief period of repose. It is also not unlikely that the toils and constant excitement, which the latter so long suffered, had produced that complete weariness of feeling which at last bends the proudest and most active spirits to wish for repose. He would thus be better fitted for receiving and returning the friendship of his protector, and for finding undisturbed satisfaction in the studies and pursuits to which he now seems to have devoted himself. The Commedia had probably been completed some time, and most, if not all the minor poems on which his fame is established. The Muse, however, was still his solace; but now that his passions were calmed, and his thoughts more under the control of temperate reason than impelled by his impetuous genius, he was satisfied with employing his skill simply in versifying, and poetical paraphrases of the seven penetential Psalms, the Credo, together with the |