Giovanni Villani
AMONG the many accusations that have been made against
modern writers by the exclusive lovers of ancient literature,
none has been more frequently repeated than the want of
art manifested in the conception of their works, and of unity
in the execution. They compare the Greek temples to Go-
thic churches, and bidding us remark the sublime simplicity
of the one, and the overcharged ornament of the other, they
tell us, that such is the perfection of antiquity compared
with the monstruous distortions of modern times. These argu-
ments and views, followed up in all their details, have given
rise to volumes concerning the Classic and the Romantic, a
difference much dwelt on by German writers, and treated at
length by Madame de Staël in her “L’Allemagne.”(2) All
readers, who happen at the same time to be thinkers, must have
formed their own opinion of this question; but assuredly
the most reasonable is that which would lead us to admire
the beauties of all, referring those beauties to the standard
of excellence that must decide on all merit in the highest
resort, without reference to narrow systems and arbitrary
rules. Methinks it is both presumptuous and sacrilegious
to pretend to give the law to genius. We are too far re-
moved from the point of perfection to judge with accuracy
of what ought to be, and it is sufficient if we understand and
feel what is. The fixed stars appear to abberate;(3) but it is
we that move, not they. The regular planets make various
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excursions into the heavens, and we are told that some
among them never return to the point whence they departed,
and by no chance ever retrace the same path in the pathless
sky. Let us, applying the rules which appertain to the
sublimest objects in nature, to the sublimest work of God, a
Man of Genius, — let us, I say, conclude, that though one of
this species appear to err, the failure is in our understand-
ings, not in his course; and though lines and rules, “cen-
tric and eccentric scribbled o’er,”(4) have been marked out for
the wise to pursue, that these in fact have generally been
the leading-strings and go-carts of mediocrity, and have
never been constituted the guides of those superior minds
which are themselves the law, and whose innate impulses
are the fiats, of intellectual creation.
But zeal for the cause of genius has carried me further
than I intended. Let us again recur to the charges brought
against modern writers, and instead of cavilling at their de-
merits, let me be pardoned if I endeavour to discover that
which is beautiful even in their defects, and to point out the
benefits we may reap in the study of the human mind from
this capital one — the want of unity and system.
It is a frequent fault among modern authors, and pecu-
liarly among those of the present day, to introduce them-
selves, their failings and opinions, into the midst of works
dedicated to objects sufficiently removed, as one might think,
from any danger of such an incursion. This has sometimes
the effect of a play-house anecdote I once heard, of a man
missing his way behind the scenes, in passing from one part
of the house to the other, and suddenly appearing in his hat
and unpicturesque costume, stalking amidst the waves of a
frightful storm, much to the annoyance of the highly-wrought
feelings of the spectators of the impending catastrophe of a
disastrous melodrame. Thus the Poet, in propriâ personâ,
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will elbow his way between the despairing fair one and her
agitated lover; he will cause a murderer’s arm to be uplifted
till it ought to ache, and his own hobby will sometimes dis-
place the more majestic quadruped that just before occupied
the scene.
These are the glaring defects of the intrusion of self in a
work of art. But well-managed, there are few subjects,
especially in poetry, that excite stronger interest or elicit
more beautiful lines. To sit down for the purpose of talk-
ing of oneself, will sometimes freeze the warmth of inspira-
tion; but, when elevated and carried away by the subject in
hand, some similitude or contrast may awaken a chord which
else had slept, and the whole mind will pour itself into the
sound; and he must be a critic such as Sterne(5) describes,
his stop-watch in his hand, who would arrest the lengthened
echo of the deepest music of the soul.(6) Let each man lay his
hand on his heart and say, if Milton’s(7) reference to his own
blindness and personal circumstances does not throw an in-
terest over Paradise Lost,(8) which they would not lose to ren-
der the work as much no man’s or any man’s production as
the Æneid — supposing Ille ego(9) to be an interpolation, which
I fondly trust it is not.
This habit of self-analysation and display has also caused
many men of genius to undertake works where the indivi-
dual feeling of the author embues(10) the whole subject with a
peculiar hue. I have frequently remarked, that these books
are often the peculiar favourites among men of imagination
and sensibility. Such persons turn to the human heart as
the undiscovered country. They visit and revisit their own;
endeavour to understand its workings, to fathom its depths,
and to leave no lurking thought or disguised feeling in the
hiding places where so many thoughts and feelings, for fear
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of shocking the tender consciences of those inexpert in the
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of shocking the tender consciences of those inexpert in the
task of self-examination, delight to seclude themselves. As
a help to the science of self-knowledge, and also as a con-
tinuance of it, they wish to study the minds of others, and
particularly of those of the greatest merit. The sight of land
was not more welcome to Columbus,(11) than are these traces of
individual feeling, chequering their more formal works of
art, to the voyagers in the noblest of terræ incognitæ, the
soul of man. Sometimes, despairing to attain to a know-
ledge of the secrets of the best and wisest, they are pleased
to trace human feeling wherever it is artlessly and truly pour-
trayed. No book perhaps has been oftener the vade-mecum
of men of wit and sensibility than Burton’s Anatomy of Me-
lancholy;(12) the zest with which it is read being heightened
by the proof the author gave in his death of his entire ini-
tiation into the arcana of his science. The essential attri-
butes of such a book must be truth; for else the fiction is
more tame than any other; and thus Sterne may become this
friend to the reading man, but his imitators never can; for
affectation is easily detected and deservedly despised. Mon-
taigne(13) is another great favourite; his pages are referred to
as his conversation would be, if indeed his conversation
was half so instructive, half so amusing, or contained half so
vivid a picture of his internal spirit as his essay. Rousseau’s
Confessions,(14) written in a more liberal and even prodigal spirit
of intellectual candour, is to be ranked as an inestimable
acquisition to this class of production. Boswell’s Life of
Johnson(15) has the merit of carrying light into the recesses not
of his own, but another’s peculiar mind. Spence’s Anecdotes(16)
is a book of the same nature, but less perfect in its kind.
Half the beauty of Lady Mary Montague’s Letters(17) consists
in the I that adorns them; and this I, this sensitive, imagi-
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native, suffering, enthusiastic pronoun, spreads an inexpres-
sible charm over Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters from Nor-
way.*(18)
An historian is perhaps to be held least excusable, if he
intrude personally on his readers. Yet they might well follow
the example of Gibbon, who, while he left the pages of his
Decline and Fall(19) unstained by any thing that is not appli-
cable to the times of which he treated, has yet, through the
medium of his Life and Letters,(20) given a double interest to his
history and opinions. Yet an author of Memoirs, or a His-
tory of his own Times, must necessarily appear sometimes
upon the scene. Mr. Hyde gives greater interest to Lord
Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion,(21) though I have often
regretted that a quiet I had not been inserted in its room.
And now drawing the lines of this reasoning together, it
may be conjectured why I like, and how I would excuse, the
dear, rambling, old fashioned pages of Giovanni Villani, the
author of the Croniche Fiorentine; the writer who makes
the persons of Dante’s Spirits(22) familiar to us; who guides us
through the unfinished streets and growing edifices of Fi-
renze la bella, and who in short transports us back to the
superstitions, party spirit, companionship, and wars of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Dante’s commentators
had made me familiar with the name of Villani, and I be-
came desirous of obtaining what appeared to be the key of
the mysterious allusions of the Divina Comedia. There is
something venerable and endearing in the very appearance
of this folio of the sixteenth century.(23) The Italian is old and
delightfully ill-spelt: I say delightfully, for it is spelt for
*I cannot help here alluding to the papers of “Elia,” which have lately
appeared in a periodical publication.(24) When collected together, they must
rank among the most beautiful and highly valued specimens of the kind of
writing spoken of in the text.
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Italian ears, and the mistakes let one into the secret of the
pronunciation of Dante and Petrarch(25) better than the regu-
lar orthography of the present day. The abbreviations are
many, and the stops in every instance misplaced; the ink is
black, the words thickly set, so that the most seems to have
been made of every page. It requires a little habit to read
it with the same fluency as another book, but when this dif-
ficulty is vanquished, it acquires additional charms from the
very labour that has been bestowed.
I know that in describing the outward appearance of my
friend, I perform a thankless office, since few will sympa-
thise in an affection which arises from a number of associa-
tions in which they cannot participate. But in developing
the spirit that animates him, I undertake a more grateful
task, although, by stripping him of his original garb and
dressing him in a foreign habiliment, I divest him of one of
his greatest beauties. Though in some respects rather old
fashioned, his Italian is still received as a model of style;
and those Italians who wish to purify their language from
Gallicisms,(26) and restore to it some of its pristine strength and
simplicity, recur with delight to his pages. All this is lost
in the English; but even thus I trust that his facts will
interest, his simplicity charm, and his real talent be ap-
preciated.
In the course of his work, Villani thus recounts the
motives that induced him to commence his history: —
“In the year 1300, according to the nativity of Christ, on
account of its having been said by many, that in former
times, every hundred years after the nativity of Christ, he
that was pope at that period gave great indulgencies, Pope
Boniface VIII,(27) who then held the Apostolic office, through
reverence for the same, gave a great and high indulgence in
this manner: that whatsoever believer visited during all that
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year continuously for thirty days (and fifteen days for strangers
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year continuously for thirty days (and fifteen days for strangers
who were not Romans) the churches of the blessed Apostles,
Peter and Paul, to all these he gave full and entire pardon,
both of sin and punishment, for all their sins confessed or to
be confessed; and for the consolation of Christian pilgrims,
every Friday and holiday, the Veronicia del Sudario(29) of
Christ was exhibited at St. Peter’s.(30) On this account a
great part of the then existing Christians performed this
said journey, both men and women, from distant and diverse
countries, both far and near. And it was the most won-
derful thing that ever was, that, during a whole year there
were in Rome, besides the people of the city, two hundred
thousand pilgrims, without including those on the road
going and coming; and all were [well] furnished and satisfied
with all manner of food, as well the houses as the persons;
and this I can witness, who was there present, and saw much
accrued to the Church from the offerings of the pilgrims,
and all the Roman people became rich through the com-
merce occasioned by them. I, being at the Holy City of
Rome, on account of this blessed pilgrimage, observing the
magnificent and ancient things there, and knowing the
great achievements and history of the Romans, written by
other masters of history, who narrated small occurrences as
well as great, and even those that happened at the ex-
tremities of the universal world, to give note and example to
those to come after them; and although, with regard to their
style and order, I was not a disciple worthy the doing so
great a work, yet, considering our city of Florence, the
daughter and creature of Rome, which had achieved high
things in her ascent, and was now, like Rome, on her de-
cline, it appeared to me to be right to collect in this vo-
lume a new Chronicle of all the deeds and ordinances of
VOL. II. U
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that city; and as much as was in me to seek, find, and nar-
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that city; and as much as was in me to seek, find, and nar-
rate past, present, and future times, while it shall please
God. So that I shall recount at large the deeds of the
Florentines, and all other famous events of the universal
world, as far as I can learn, God giving me grace, in hope of
which I began this enterprize,(36) considering the poverty of my
talent, on which I should not have dared rely. And thus,
through the grace of Christ, having returned from Rome
in his year 1300, I began to compile this book, in reverence
to God and the blessed Messer Santo John,(37) in commendation
of the city of Florence.” — (Book VIII. Cap. 36.)
Villani begins his history with the Tower of Babel and
the confusion of tongues; and then relates how king Atalante,
the fifth in descent from Japhet, the son of Noah,(38) colonized
in Italy and built the town of Fiesole.(39) He commemorates
the siege of Troy,(40) and how Antenor and the younger Priam
came over to Italy, and severally built the towns of Padua
and Venice;(41) and that the descendants of the latter became
kings of Germany and France. The history of Rome is
slightly skimmed over, and he mentions that, after the dis-
covery of Catiline’s plot,(42) several of the conspirators en-
trenched themselves in Fiesole, which was accordingly be-
sieged by the following leaders: “Count Rainaldo, Cicero,
Tiberinus, Machrimus, Albinus, Cn. Pompeius, Cæsar Ca-
mertinus, Count Seggio, Tudertino, that is of the Soli,(43) who
was with Julius Cæsar and his army.”(44) Under such an as-
semblage of generals Fiesole fell, and Florence arose from
its ruins.
But these strange anachronisms and unfounded fables,
though made amusing by the gravity and minuteness of
Villani, are not the qualities which constitute his principal
merit. He grows more interesting and more authentic as he
advances from the creation of the world to his own times;
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and nine-tenths of his book are occupied by the narration
of events which occurred during the course of his own life.
He describes characters in the style of one well read in
human nature, and who, by living at a period when civil dis-
cord awakened the most violent passions and disclosed the
workings of the heart carefully veiled for our politer eyes,
and by mingling in the game where each the smallest
individual risked fortune, family and life, — had penetrated
into every diversity of character. His anecdotes make
us familiarly acquainted with the private habits and ways
of thinking of those times; his accounts of civil com-
motions and wars are worthy of that which he was — an
eye-witness. It is true, that in the midst of grave matter
of fact, the strangest stories will force their way. I own
that these digressions are to me by no means the least
pleasant part of his work, and as they are disjoined from the
rest of his history, they by no means injure his character of
an exact historian, which stands high on all matters ap-
pertaining to Italy and his immediate times. I confess that
while reading a spirited narration of the Battle of the Arbia,(45)
or the murder of Buondelmonti and the rise of parties in
Florence,(46) or any other historic fact of the kind, I come with
pleasure to a chapter entitled—“How the Tartars first left
the mountains where Alexander the Great had confined
them,” and read under that head the following wild and po-
etic story: —
“In the year of Christ 1202, the people called Tartars
came out from the mountains of Gog and Magog, called in
Latin the mountains of Belgen. This people are said to have
descended from that tribe of Israel which the great Alex-
ander, king of Greece, who conquered all the world, shut up
in these mountains, on account of their wicked life (per loro
brutta vita) that they might not mix with the other gene-
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rations. And through their cowardice and vain credulity,
they remained shut up from the time of Alexander until
this period, believing that the army of this king still sur-
rounded them. For he, with wonderful mechanism, com-
manded immense trumpets to be made, and placed on the
mountains, which every wind caused to sound and trumpet
forth with a great noise. Afterwards, it is said, that owls
built their nests in the mouths of those trumpets, which put
an end to the artifice by stopping the sound: and on this
account the Tartars have owls in great reverence, and their
principal lords wear the feathers of owls, by way of ornament,
in their caps, in memory that they caused to cease the
sound of these trumpets. For this circumstance reassured
the people, who lived in the manner of animals, and were of
innumerable numbers; so certain among them passed the
mountains and finding no enemy on their summits, but only
this vain sound of these tower-exalted trumpets, they de-
scended to the plains of India, which were fertile, fruitful,
and of a mild climate; and returning and reporting this
news to their families and the rest of the people, they as-
sembled together, and made, through divine intervention, a
poor blacksmith called Cangius their general and lord.
And when he was made lord, he received the name of
“Cane,” that is the emperor in their language. He was a
valourous and wise man; and through his wisdom and valour
he divided the people into tens, hundreds, and thousands,
under captains fitted to the command. And first, he ordered
all his principal subjects to kill their first-born sons, and
when he found himself obeyed in this, he issued his com-
mand to his people, entered India, vanquished Prester John,
and conquered all his country.” (Book V. Cap. 27.)(47)
Villani was a Guelph, that is, an adherent to the papal
and republican party. He repeats all the calumnies that
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had been invented to prejudice the Italians against the
house of Swabia,(48) and he appears to believe the miracles and
dreams of various pontiffs with catholic credulity: One of
his principal heroes is Charles d’Anjou,(49) a cruel, faithless,
but heroic tyrant; and it is thus that he paints his character
with the partiality of a partizan, and the lively touches of
one personally acquainted with the character whom he hands
down to posterity: —
“Charles was wise and prudent, brave in arms, severe,
and much feared and redoubted by all the kings in the
world; magnanimous, and of high spirit to carry on any
great enterprize, firm in adversity, secure and veracious in
keeping his promises, speaking little and doing much. He
seldom laughed, if ever; chaste as a monk, and catholicly
religious. As a judge he was merciless, and of ferocious as-
pect. He was tall and strongly made, of an olive com-
plexion, with a large nose; and he appeared far more ma-
jestic than any other lord. He watched much, and slept
little; using to say, that sleeping was so much time lost.
He was generous as a knight of arms, but desirous of ac-
quiring lands, dominion, and wealth, whence he might pro-
vide for his enterprizes and wars. He never took delight in
uomini di corte, courtiers and games.” (Book VII. Cap 1.)
History does not present in any of her pages so strong a
contrast as that between the characters of the rivals for the
crown of Naples. Manfred(50) was the natural son of Frederic,
the last Emperor of the house of Swabia. Refusing to bow
the neck to the yoke of papal tyranny, three successive Pon-
tiffs pursued him with unbending malignity and hatred; they
at length bestowed his kingdom upon Charles d’Anjou, and
invited him over to conquer it. It is hardly fair to give the
character of the intrepid, noble, and unfortunate Manfred
in the words of his enemy, for such Villani was. But the
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actions of these two princes are a comment upon the words
of the historian, and enable us to form an impartial opinion.
“This same king Manfred,” says Villani, “was the son of a
beautiful woman belonging to the Marquess Lancia of Lom-
bardy, to whom the Emperor was attached. He was a hand-
some man like his father, but dissolute and luxurious in the
extreme; he was a musician, a singer, and was pleased to
see buffoons and uomini di corte; he kept mistresses, and al-
ways dressed in green. He was generous and courteous,
and of noble demeanour, so that he was much beloved and
followed; but his life was epicurean; scarcely believ-
ing in God (for God read the Pope)(51) or his saints; he was an
enemy of holy church and of priests; was a greater confis-
cator of church riches than his father: he was rich, through
the treasure left by the Emperor and by king Conrad,(52) and
because his kingdom was fruitful and abundant. And while
he lived at war with the church, he rendered his kingdom
prosperous, and so rose to great dominion and riches by sea
and land. He had for wife the daughter of the despot of
Romania (the Emperor of Constantinople)(53) by whom he had
several children.” — (Book VIth, Cap. 47.)
The great crime of Manfred consisted in his forming a small
army of Saracens, whom he used to defend himself against his
papal enemies, who were devotedly attached to him, and by
whose means he had risen to dominion again, after he had been
reduced to flight and impotence. Even in the above garbled
account of the noblest king and the most accomplished ca-
valier that ever existed, we may trace his excellencies. His
kingdom prosperous, himself adored by his subjects, we may
excuse his love for courtly amusements; and beloved by his
wife, we may doubt the excess of less pardonable faults.
The actions of Charles are a long list of crimes. He involved
Naples in a bloody war, and shewed no mercy to the van-
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quished. After the death of Manfred, who happily for him-
self died on the field of battle, his wife Sibilla, whose high
birth Villani has commemorated, and her children, were im-
prisoned in Calabria, and there, as this partial historian shortly
narrates (da Carlo fatto morire) put to death by Charles.
Every noble partisan of Manfred lost his life on the scaffold,
and the line of unfortunate victims was closed by the young
and gallant Coradino.(54) His newly conquered kingdom was
driven to desperation by his extortions and cruelties, and
the Sicilian vespers at length delivered that miserable island
from his merciless gripe. Such was the catholicly religious
Charles.
But to return to Villani: although a violent party-man, he
dwells with fond regret on the time when there was neither
Guelph nor Ghibeline in Florence. “It is from these names,”
he says “that great evil and ruin fell upon our city, as mention
will hereafter be made: and we may well believe, that it will
never have an end, if God does not terminate it.” This (as
it were) figure of speech, of recurring to the good old times,
is common to all recorders of the past, from Homer(55) down-
wards. But it is more natural in Villani, since he himself
beheld the festive meetings of his countrymen changed into
murderous brawls, and after having seen all that claimed
the common name of Florentines live in brotherly amity, he
witnessed the irremediable rent which divided them into
Guelph and Ghibeline, the palaces of Florence razed through
the violence of party, and the estates of the vanquished con-
fiscated. Examples of the rich and happy becoming poor and
wretched were familiar to him, and the further sting was
added, that these calamities were not occasioned by what
may be called the natural evils of life — neither by pesti-
lence, war, nor famine — but by civil discord, originating in
words only, and where the wisest and best, branded by a
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name, became the victims of the new-born hatred of former
friends.
After the manner of Livy,(56) Villani delights to tell of mon-
sters, of comets, of meteors, and portents. In one place he
tells us how “Philip le Bel,(57) king of France, caused to be
made prisoners all the Italians in that kingdom, under pre-
tence of taking usurers; but at the same time he caused to
be taken, and liberated only upon ransom, many honest mer-
chants as usurers; for this he was much blamed and hated,
and henceforward the kingdom of France went declining,
falling, and coming from bad to worse.”
Perhaps the best idea that I can present of the general
nature of this book, will be in giving some of the heads of
the chapters in the order they occur. As for instance: —
(Book VIII. Cap. 12.) “How the nobles of the city of
Florence took arms to destroy and oppress the popular go-
vernment.” (Cap. 13.) “How Pope Boniface made peace
between king Charles, and the Florentines, and Don
Giamo of Arragon, king of Sicily.” (Cap. 14.) “How the
Guelph party was driven out of Genoa.” (Cap. 15.) “Of
certain novelties and changes that arrived among the lords
of Tartary.” (Book IX. Cap. 291.) “How a new small mo-
ney was coined at Florence.” (Cap. 292.) “Of a miraculous
fall of snow in Tuscany.” (Cap. 293.) “How Castruccio en-
deavoured to betray Florence.” (Cap. 294.) “How there was
accord between some of the elected lords in Germany.”
(Cap. 295.) “How Castruccio, lord of Lucca, possessed
himself of the city of Pistria, by means of treason.” (Cap.
296.) “How Messer Raimondo of Cardona came to Florence,
as Captain of War.” (Cap. 297.) “How the Duke of Ca-
labria, with a great army, made a descent upon the Island of
Sicily.” (Cap. 298.) “Of signs that appeared in the air,
which,” as Villani says, “made all who saw them, dread fu-
ture danger and troubles in the city.”
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I will conclude my extracts and remarks by his chapter
upon the death, character, and writings of Dante.
Book IX. Of the Poet Dante, and how he died. (Cap. 135.)
“In this same year (1321) in the month of July,(58) Dante died
at the city of Ravenna, in Romagna, having returned from an
embassy to Venice in the service of the lords of Polenta,(59)
with whom he lived. He was buried with great honour, in
the guise of poet and great philosopher, at Ravenna, before
the gate of the principal church.(60) He died, an exile from the
commune of Florence, at the age of about fifty-six years.
This Dante was an antient and honourable citizen of Flo-
from Florence was thus occasioned. When Messer Carlo di
Valois,(63) of the house of France, came to Florence in the year
1301, and exiled the Bianchi (a party so called) as we have
before related, this same Dante was the highest governor of
our city, and of that party, though a Guelph.* And thus,
free from guilt, he was driven out with the Bianchi, and ex-
iled from Florence, whence he retired to study at Bologna,
and afterwards to Paris, and other parts of the world. He was
very learned in almost every science, though a layman; he
was a great poet, a philosopher, and a perfect rhetorician, as
well in writing, either prose or verse, as in speaking. He was
*Villani, who was townsman and contemporary of Dante, appears to
have also been his friend, and to wish to reinstate him in the good graces of
the Florentines, by saying that he was a Guelph. Dante, as a reasonable
man, endeavoured to reconcile the absurd differences of all parties, but he was
not a Guelph. His discrepancy of opinion from Villani may be gathered from
the opposite judgments that they pass on the same persons. The poet pre-
pares a choice place of torture for Boniface VIII in his dreary hell,(64) while Vil-
lani exalts him as a saint. Dante rails at all the Popes; Villani respects them
all. Dante sweetly and pathetically dwells on the wrongs and virtues of
Manfred, and places him on the high road to heaven.(65) Villani vituperates
the noblest maker of verses, with the finest style, that had
ever been in our language until his own time and later. He
wrote in his youth the beautiful book of the “New Life of
Love,”(67) and afterwards, when in exile, he wrote twenty excel-
lent moral and amatory canzoni.(68) Among other things he
wrote three noble epistles;(69) one of which he sent to the go-
vernment of Florence, mourning his banishment as an inno-
cent man; the other he sent to the Emperor Henry (of Lux-
embourg)(70) when he was at the siege of Brescia, reprehending
his abiding there, with almost the foreknowledge of a pro-
phet: the third was to the Italian Cardinals during the vacancy
after Pope Clement,(71) advising them to accord in the election
of an Italian Pope, all in Latin, in magnificent language,
with excellent sentences and authorities, the which were
much praised by the holy men who understood them. He
wrote also the Comedia, where, in elegant verse, with great and
subtle questions of morality, natural philosophy, astrology,
philosophy and theology, and with beautiful and new meta-
phors and similes, he composed an hundred chapters or
cantos, of having been in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, in
as noble a manner as it is possible to have done. But in this
discourse, whoever is of a penetrating understanding may
well see and comprehend that he greatly loves in that drama
to dispute and vituperate, after the manner of poets, perhaps
in some places more than is decent. Probably his exile also
made him write his Treatise on Monarchy,*(72) where in excel-
lent Latin he treats of the offices of Pope and Emperor. He
*I must again remark, that Dante and Villani must have been personal
friends, or that reverence for the poet’s talent made the latter seek for every
circumstance that might excuse the opinions of Dante to the Florentines, who
were then all Guelphs, and to whom the Treatise on Monarchy was peculiarly
began a comment upon fourteen of his before-mentioned
moral canzoni, which, on account of his death, he did not
finish; and only three were found, the which, from what we
see, would have been a great, beautiful, subtle, and eminent
work. He also wrote a book entitled, “of Vulgar Elo-
quence”(74) — which, he says, was to consist of four books, but
only two are found, probably on account of his unexpected
death, where, in strong and elegant Latin, he reprobates all
vernacular Italian. This Dante, on account of his knowledge,
was somewhat presumptuous, satirical, and contemptuous.
He was uncourteous, as it were, after the manner of philoso-
phers; nor did he well know how to converse with laymen.
But on account of his other virtues, his science, and his me-
rit as a citizen, it appeared just to give him perpetual memo-(75)
in this our Chronicle, although his great works left in writing
bestow on him a true testimony, and an honourable fame on
our city.”
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EDITORIAL NOTES
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EDITORIAL NOTES
[1] Giovanni Villani (c. 1275-1348), Italian diplomat and chronicler. His Nuova Cronica is one of the most important sources for Italian medieval history. His Croniche Fiorentine (1347) was read by Mary Shelley in preparation for her novel Valperga (1823).
[2] Madame de Staël (1766-1817), French-Swiss writer and intellectual. In her De l’Allemagne (1810), she describes German Romanticism as a response to the perceived limitations of Enlightenment thinking, particularly in connection with the complexity and emotional depth of the human experience.
[3] Misprint for aberrate.
[4] See John Milton, Paradise Lost VIII.83. Adam asks Raphael about the motions of the starts, sun, and planets, assuming that other planets orbit the earth. Raphael, however, explains that it is possible, although not certain, that the earth’s circular motion on its axis might be responsible for such impression.
[5] Laurence Sterne (1713-68), British novelist, author of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67) and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), in which he blends humour, satire, and experimental narrative techniques.
[6] See chapter 12 in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy III. Sterne contends that critics are so focused on rules and norms (here represented by a stop-watch that the critic insists on checking) that they fail to recognize or are unwilling to acknowledge works of genius.
[7] John Milton (1608-74), English poet, political pamphleteer, and civil servant under the English statesman Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). Milton’s epic Paradise Lost (1667) follows the story of Satan’s rebellion against God, his fall from Heaven, and the subsequent temptation of Adam and Eve.
[8] See John Milton, Paradise Lost III.1-55 and VII.24-31.
[9] Latin for I am he.
[10] Variant of the verb to imbue.
[11] Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), Italian explorer. Shelley’s allusion is to his first voyage across the Atlantic, which led to the European discovery of the American continent (1492).
[12] Robert Burton (1577-1640), English scholar and author of The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). He died around the time he had predicted years earlier based on the calculation of his nativity.
[13] Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), French philosopher and essayist best known for his Essais (1580-88), which Mary Shelley read between 1818 and 1822.
[14] Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), French philosopher and writer, whose Confessions (1782-89) are regarded as one of the first modern autobiographies.
[15] James Boswell (1740-95), Scottish lawyer, diarist and biographer. He is known for his celebrated biography of the writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), read by Mary Shelley in 1820.
[16] Joseph Spence (1699-1768), English scholar and contributor to the early development of the literary biography along with Rousseau and Boswell. He is remembered for his Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men, published posthumously in 1820.
[17] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), English writer. Her letters, written during her time in the Ottoman Empire, were collected in the volume Embassy Letters (1763).
[18] Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97), English writer, philosopher, and early advocate for women’s rights. Her Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) blend personal reflections, observations of nature, and a critique of social and political conditions. They were read by her daughter, Mary Shelley, between 1814 and 1822.
[19] Edward Gibbon (1737-94), English historian. Mary Shelley read his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) between 1815 and 1818.
[20] Memoirs of My Life and Writings (1796) is an account of Edward Gibbon’s life compiled by his friend John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield (1735-1821). It offers insights into his personal life, intellectual development, and writing. Mary Shelley read it in 1815.
[21] The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, begun in the Year 1641 (1702-04), read by Mary Shelley between 1816 and 1819, is an account of the English Civil War (1642-51) by the Earl of Clarendon. In it, the author refers to himself in the third person as Mr. Hyde.
[22] Shelley’s allusion is to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, which portrays the spirits of several figures contemporary to himself and Villani.
[23] Reference to Croniche di Messer Giovanni Villani, Cittadino Fiorentino (1537) edited by Giacomo Fasolo.
[24] Charles Lamb (1775-1834), English essayist, poet and critic. His essays, celebrated for their wit and conversational tone, were published in The London Magazine between 1820 and 1823 under the pseudonym of ‘Elia’ and collected in book form as Essays of Elia (1823-33).
[25] Francesco Petrarca (1304-74), Italian poet and humanist, known for his Canzoniere, a collection of poems written, like Dante’s Divine Comedy, in lingua volgare, or Tuscan vernacular.
[26] Allusion to the efforts of the Accademia della Crusca, a society of scholars of linguistics and philology founded in Florence in 1583 with the aim of maintaining the purity of the Italian language.
[27] Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1235-1303), head of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Boniface VIII was a controversial pontiff who sought to assert papal supremacy over secular rulers, famously clashing with King Philip IV of France (1268-1314) and issuing the papal bull Unam Sanctam (1302), claiming the pope’s ultimate authority.
[28] Misprint. Incorrect page numbers from 287 to 302.
[29] According to the Christian tradition, the veil of Veronica is the handkerchief or veil impressed with Christ’s features that appeared when Saint Veronica, a widow from Jerusalem, wiped Jesus’ forehead as he was carrying the cross on Calvary Hill.
[30] St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, one of the holiest sites of Christianity.
[31] Gaius Sallustius Criptus, anglicised as Sallust (c. 86-35 BCE), Roman historian and politician, and the earliest known Roman historian writing in Latin whose works have survived.
[32] Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, known in English as Lucan (39-65 CE), Roman poet, author of the epic poem Pharsalia or De Bello Civili.
[33] Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, (59 BCE-17 CE), Roman historian. He authored Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), a history of Rome and its people.
[34] Valerius Maximus, first-century writer and author of Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri IX (Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings), a collection of historical anecdotes, most of which related to Roman history.
[35] Paulus Orosius (flourished 414-417 CE), Roman priest and historian. His Seven Books of History Against the Pagans is regarded as one of the most influential texts in historiography between antiquity and the Middle Ages.
[36] Archaic form of the noun enterprise.
[37] John the Baptist (b. 1st decade BCE-d. 28/36 CE), Jewish preacher and patron of Florence.
[38] Biblical reference: Genesis 11.1-9.
[39] Fiesole is an Italian town located four miles north-east of Florence.
[40] In Greek mythology, the siege of Troy marked the final stage of the war fought by the Greeks under king Agamemnon’s leadership to reclaim Helen, the wife of his brother Menelaus.
[41] Following the siege of Troy, the Trojan prince Antenor fled with Priam’s infant son, Priam the younger, guiding the Eneti to the northern Adriatic, where they settled in Venetia and founded Padua.
[42] Lucius Sergius Catilina, known in English as Catiline (c. 108-62 BCE), Roman senator and politician. He is known for his failed conspiracy to overthrow the Roman Republic in 63 BCE. His attempts to seize power and overthrow the Roman consuls ultimately led to his downfall.
[43] Misprint for Todi.
[44] Although five of the leaders were captured, Catiline fled to Fiesole where he gathered his troops to fight against the state, but was ultimately defeated and killed in battle (see Giovanni Villani, Croniche Florentine I 36). Following Catiline’s ill-fated campaign, the Etrusco-Roman city gained increasing importance thanks to its strategic position between the river and the hill. In the same year, Caesar ordered the construction of a military camp to secure Fiesole owing to the presence of large numbers of Catilinarian supporters.
[45] Fought on 4 September 1260, the Battle of Montaperti was part of the conflict between Guelphs and Ghibellines, two factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor respectively. Part of the battle is believed to have been fought near the river Arbia, in Siena. During the battle the people of Florence, who were Guelphs, were defeated by an army of refugee Ghibellines.
[46] Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti (d. 1216), noble Florentine of the Buondelmonti family. According to Villani, Buondelmonte was engaged to a maiden from the Amidei family. However, Buondelmonte fell in love with a woman from the Donati family and ended the engagement. The broken betrothal was viewed as a grave insult by the Amidei, who vowed to seek revenge. Thereafter, the Florentine nobility split into two factions, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and became embroiled in a bloody struggle for power.
[47] In the original, chapter 28.
[48] One of the stem-duchies of medieval Germany, governed by members of the Hohenstaufen family.
[49] Charles I, also known as Charles d’Anjou (1226-85), king of Naples and Sicily, and youngest brother of King Louis IX of France (1214-70). In 1266, he became King of Sicily after defeating the last Hohenstaufen ruler, Manfred, in battle.
[50] Manfred (1232-66), illegitimate son of Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) and last King of Sicily of the Hohenstaufen family. His reign was marked by conflict with the Papacy and rival dynasties. In 1266, he was defeated and killed by Charles d’Anjou at the Battle of Benevento, ending the Hohenstaufen rule in Sicily. See also Mary Shelley’s “A Tale of Passions” published in the second instalment of The Liberal.
[51] Editorial interpolation.
[52] Conrad IV (1228-54), king of Italy and, after the Emperor’s death in 1250, king of Sicily as Conrad I. Manfred was appointed vicar of Italy and Sicily for his half-brother Conrad IV, but quickly began pursuing the Sicilian throne for himself.
[53] Editorial interpolation.
[54] Conrad III (1252-68), known by the diminutive Conradin, was Conrad IV’s son and the last direct heir of the Hohenstaufen family. After his failed attempt to restore the Kingdom of Sicily to the Hohenstaufen dynasty, he was captured and executed by beheading.
[55] Homer, Greek poet.
[56] Livy, Roman historian.
[57] Philip IV, also known as Philippe le Bel (1268-1314), king of France from 1285 to 1314.
[58] Dante died between 13 and 14 September, as testified by the epitaph by Giovanni del Virgilio, Theologus Dantes.
[59] The da Polenta were a noble Italian family. In 1318-19, Guido Novello da Polenta (d. 1330) gave hospitality to Dante in Ravenna, after he had been exiled for his political involvement and the factional struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines.
[60] Basilica of San Francesco, a major church in Ravenna which hosted Dante’s funeral in 1321.
[61] Misprint for division.
[62] Dante belonged to the small urban Guelph nobility and was born in the district of San Martino del Vescovo, in the quarter of Porta San Pietro, Florence.
[63] Charles of Valois (1270-1325), French prince. Charles led several campaigns in Italy, but his attempts to gain power, especially in Florence, were largely unsuccessful.
[64] See Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy: Inferno XIX.54-81. Led by Virgil, Dante descends to the third gulf of hell, home of the guilty of simony who hang upside down with their feet ablaze. There, the spirit of Pope Nicholas III foretells that Pope Boniface VIII will soon occupy the very spot where he himself is suspended.
[65] See Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy: Purgatorio III.110-41.
[66] Italian for excommunicate.
[67] Vita Nova (c. 1293) is an early collection of verse by Dante Alighieri. Vita Nova marked the beginning of his literary career and laid the thematic and formal foundations for his later work, The Divine Comedy.
[68] Reference to the moral and allegorical canzoni of the first years of exile. Among them is Dante’s “Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute” (Rime 47 CIV). The three women allegorically represent Universal Justice, Human Justice, and Natural Law, and point at the general decline in justice that led to Dante’s own unjust condemnation and exile.
[69] Only the second and third letters have survived.
[70] Editorial interpolation.
[71] Clement V (c. 1260-1314), head of the Catholic Church from 1305. The letter to the Italian cardinals urging them to elect an Italian pope was aimed at restoring the papal seat in Rome. It was Clement V, formerly the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who had moved the papacy to Avignon.
[72] Dante Alighieri’s De monarchia (1313) is a political essay exploring the relationship between secular and spiritual power.
[73] Misprint. The correct header would be GIOVANNI VILLANI.
[74] De vulgari eloquentia is a Latin treatise by Dante Alighieri. In this work, Dante argues for the legitimacy and artistic potential of the vernacular, or common language, in contrast to Latin, then the language of scholarship and the Church.
[75] Misprint for memorial.
Ultimo aggiornamento
30.04.2025