Dante Alighieri by Paget Toynbee Read Free Book Online Page B

I could not eat mine’. And he said this because his host was called Cane (‘dog’).” 5
    Â Â Â Â  The author of an old commentary on the
Divina Commedia
, written probably not many years after Dante’s death, relates Dante’s retort to the musical-instrument maker of Florence, whom the poet has placed among the negligent in his Ante-Purgatory: 6 “Belacqua was a citizen of Florence, who made the necks of lutes and guitars, and he was the laziest man that ever was known. It was said that he used to come in the morning to his shop and sit himself down, and never stir again except to go to dinner or to his siesta. Now Dante was a familiar acquaintance of his, and often rebuked him for his laziness; whereupon one day when he was scolding him, Belacqua answered him with the words of Aristotle: ‘Byrepose and quiet the mind attains to wisdom’. To which Dante retorted: ‘Certainly if repose will make a man wise, you ought to be the wisest man on earth’.” 7
    Â Â Â Â  Benvenuto da Imola, another commentator on the
Commedia
, says that besides being a maker of musical instruments, this Belacqua was also something of a musician, and he explains that it was on this account that Dante, who was a lover of music, became intimate with him.
    Â Â Â Â  The following two stories of Dante in Florence are told by Franco Sacchetti, the Florentine writer of tales, who was born within twenty years of Dante’s death, and belonged to a family which had a long-standing blood-feud with Dante’s family, Geri del Bello, the first cousin of the poet’s father, having been killed by one of the Sacchetti. 8 The first story contains also a characteristic anecdote of Dante’s uncompromising ways, which according to Sacchetti largely contributed to bring about his exile.
    Â Â Â Â  “That most excellent poet in the vulgar tongue, whose fame will never die, Dante Alighieri of Florence, lived in Florence not far from the Adimari family, one of whom, a young man, got into trouble through some misdoing or other, and was like to be sentenced to punishment by one of the magistrates. As the magistrate was a friend of Dante’s, the young man begged the latter to intercede in his favour, which Dante readily consented to do. After dinner, Dante went out from his house, and started on his way to fulfil his promise. As he passed by the Porta San Piero, a blacksmith was hammering iron on his anvil, and at the same time bawling out some of Dante’s verses, leaving out lines here and there, and putting in others of his own, which seemed to Dante a most monstrous outrage. Without saying a word he went up to the blacksmith’s forge, where were kept all the tools he used to ply histrade, and seizing the hammer flung it into the street; then he took the tongs and flung them after the hammer, and the scales after the tongs; and he did the same with a number of the other tools. The blacksmith, turning round to him with a coarse gesture, said: ‘What the devil are you doing ? are you mad ?’ Dante replied: ‘What are you doing ?’ ‘I am about my business,’ said the smith, ‘and you are spoiling my tools by throwing them into the street.’ Dante retorted: ‘If you do not want me to spoil your things, do not you spoil mine’. The smith replied: ‘And what of yours am I spoiling ?’ Dante said: ‘You sing out of my book, and do not give the words as I wrote them. That is my business, and you are spoiling it for me.’ The blacksmith, bursting with rage, but not knowing what to answer, picked up his things and went back to his work. And the next time he wanted to sing, he sang of Tristram and Lancelot, and let Dante’s book alone.
    Â Â Â Â  “Dante meanwhile pursued his way to the magistrate; and when he was come to his house, and bethought himself that this Adimari was a haughty young man, and behaved