Dante Alighieri, his life and works

266 Pages·1965·4.37 MB·English

by  Toynbee

DANTE ALIGHIERI
His Life and Works
BRONZE BUST OF DANTE
In the possession of Whitworth Wallis, Esq., Birmingham
DANTE ALIGHIERI
His Life and Works
Paget Toynbee
Introduction by
Robert Hollander
Dover Publications, Inc.
Mineola, New York
Copyright
Introduction copyright © 2005 by Robert Hollander All rights reserved.
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 2005, is an augmented republication of the 1910 “Revised and
Considerably Enlarged” fourth edition of the work originally published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, in
1900. Robert Hollander has written a new Introduction specially for the Dover edition.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Toynbee, Paget Jackson, 1855–1932.
Dante Alighieri : his life and works / Paget Toynbee ; introduction by Robert Hollander.
p. cm.
Originally published: London : Methuen, 1900.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN 13: 978-0-4861-46423
1. Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321. 2. Authors, Italian–To 1500– Biography I. Title.
PQ 4335.T7 2005
851'.1– dc22
[B]
2005045176
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
INTRODUCTION TO THE DOVER EDITION
Robert Hollander
I
N the first twenty years of the last century, Paget Jackson Toynbee (1855–
1932) made a lasting mark on Dante studies. (His main contributions will be
mentioned below.) This book, published as a short monograph in 1899 (with less
detailed descriptions of the works being the most notable difference with respect
to the present volume), was much revised in the fourth edition of 1910 (the third
edition had already been paid the rare–at that time–compliment, for a book about
Dante, of an Italian translation).
What distinguishes Toynbee’s work is its meticulous attention to detail,
bringing a gift for clear-headed analysis into play in an attempt to get the life and
works “right,” since both are surrounded by uncertainty that results from the
near-total absence of any corroborating record for the “facts” about Dante and
his work that have come down to us. It is also distinguished by a judicious turn
of mind in dealing with most of these thorny problems (some nearly inevitable,
given that uncertainty).
We want to remember (as Toynbee himself demonstrates in his later volume
Dante in English Literature) that, until the Romantic era, with the imposing
exception of Chaucer, rarely were English poets excited to the level of imitation
by Dante’s great poem, as were, to name but two, Byron and Shelley. Thus
Toynbee’s enthusiasm is part of a second British “Dante moment,” this one
centered in Oxford (where both he and Edward Moore taught) and involving
literary critics more than poets. The most important of these figures was the first
of them, Moore (1835–1916), one of the great textual editors of the Comedy, his
work used and admired even by Italian scholars, who did not hesitate to employ
the texts that he edited as the new standard. In addition, and among his other
contributions, were his “Studies in Dante,” collected in four volumes, useful
even today. A great scholar himself, Toynbee, who collaborated with Moore on
the collection of Dante’s works known as “The Oxford Dante” (1924),
frequently acknowledges his debt to Moore in the footnotes at the bottom of
these pages. Another brilliant Dantean presence on the scene was that of Philip
Wicksteed (1844–1927), a clergyman, a prolific student of economics, and a
man who raised an amateur’s interest in the Italian poet to the highest levels of
scholarship, as is evident, for instance, in his Dante and Aquinas (1913). A
sometime collaborator of Wicksteed was the much younger Edmund Gardner
(1869–1935), whose two important book-length contributions are Dante’s Ten
Heavens (1898) and Dante and the Mystics (1913). These four men were the
flower of this period in English Dante studies, but several other scholars also
contributed to making this time extraordinary for Dante studies in Great Britain.
Toynbee’s own other major contributions include A Dictionary of Proper
Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (1898; second edition,
Charles Singleton, 1968); Dante in English Literature from Chaucer to Cary
(1909), an effort to gather every instance of the occurrence of references to
Dante in English literature up to 1840; important articles collected in Dante
Studies and Researches (1902) and Dante Studies (1921); and at that point the
best critical edition of Dante’s letters (1920). It is a record of accomplishment in
Dante studies that is difficult to match.
This particular book was the first of its kind and obviously filled a need; it is a
concise, straightforward presentation of Dante’s life and works written for the
general reader but useful for the specialist as well. One is impressed, reading
through it, at how it has not become dated in a field of study in which the
essential bibliography changes in major respects every quarter century. Only one
present issue concerning the Dantean canon is not broached here, the question of
the attribution of Il fiore and Il Detto d’amore, a question that divides its
contemporary students but was not even an issue in Toynbee’s day; indeed, the
first editions of Dante’s complete works containing these two extended poetic
exercises saw the light of day only after the First World War. Toynbee’s
judgments hold up remarkably well, even his hedging on the date of composition
of the Monarchia (while leaving the question open, he decidedly prefers a date
sometime between 1310 and 1313, while most contemporary students of the
problem, after Pier Giorgio Ricci’s intervention in his edition [1965], date it
later, and no earlier than 1317). A century and more after he decided to dedicate
himself to this task, forty years after Charles Singleton republished the then out-
of-print text (1965), this book remains one of the best guides to someone trying
to find an orientation in the world that Dante manufactured.
Hopewell, New Jersey
31 December 2004
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
T
HIS little book lays no claim to originality, and makes no pretence to
learning or research. It is addressed rather to the so-called general reader
than to the serious Dante student. The narrative is taken largely from the pages
of Villani, Boccaccio, and from other similar sources. The reader will find
fiction (at any rate from the critic’s point of view) as well as fact in these pages,
but he will, I hope, be at no loss to distinguish between the two. The legends and
traditions which hang around the name of a great personality are a not
unimportant element in his biography, and may sometimes serve to place him as
well as, if not better than, the more sober estimates of the serious historian. I
have not, therefore, thought it outside the scope of this sketch of Dante’s life to
include some of the anecdotes which at an early date began to be associated with
his name, though certain of them demonstrably belong to a far earlier period.
Again, when a thing has been well said by a previous writer, I have been
content to let him speak, instead of saying the same thing less well in my own
words.
The translations for the most part are my own. I have, however, been indebted
for an occasional turn or phrase to Selfe and Wicksteed’s Selections from
Villani, and to the latter’s versions of the Early Lives of Dante.
The illustrations are reproduced, by permission, from photographs by Messrs.
Alinari and Messrs. Brogi of Florence.
May, 1900
PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION
A
FOURTH edition of this book (the third edition of which has lately been
translated into Italian by Professor Balsamo-Crivelli, of Turin) having been
called for, I have, at the suggestion of the publishers, availed myself of the
opportunity to make considerable additions to it (as well as to rectify sundry
mistakes and omissions), which will, I trust, increase its value to students,
without at the same time diminishing its interest for the general reader.
The present edition differs from its predecessors chiefly in respect of the much
fuller treatment (in Part V) of Dante’s works, of which brief analyses have now
been supplied, together with information as to MSS. and critical editions, and, in
the case of the Divina Commedia commentaries, as well as data, of special
interest to the English reader, as to the various editions and translations of each
work published in this country. Many additional details will also be found in
some of the other sections, especially in the more strictly biographical portions
of the work.
Further, in the present edition I have made a point of supplying copious
references to authorities (generally at the foot of the page), which will serve at
once as an acknowledgment of my own obligations, and as a means whereby the
reader may, if desired, check the information furnished in the text.
The bibliographical and biographical notes in the original Appendix have been
considerably amplified, and four Appendices have been added. The first of these
consists of a Genealogical Table of the family of Dante, with references to
Dante’s own allusions to members of his family. The others contain respectively,
a translation of the letter of Frate Ilario to Uguccione della Faggiuola, to which
renewed attention has been directed of late; extracts from some interesting letters
of Seymour Kirkup to Gabriele Rossetti concerning the discovery of the Giotto
portrait of Dante in the Bargello, and Kirkup’s drawing from it (further
information about which, supplied by Kirkup himself to the late owner of the
original sketch, will be found in the body of the book); and, lastly, a
Chronological List of early (cent. xiv-xvi) commentaries on the Divina
Commedia.
The index, which of necessity has been entirely recast, has been made as full
as possible in order to render the varied contents of the book easily accessible to
the student for purposes of reference, and dates have been inserted as a
convenient means of “orientation”.
Sundry illustrations have been added, among them one of a fine bronze bust of
Dante (supposed to be the work of a French artist at the beginning of the
seventeenth century) in the possession of Mr. Whitworth Wallis, Director of the
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, who kindly supplied a photograph
(hitherto unpublished) for the purpose of reproduction in this book.
PAGET TOYNBEE
20 January, 1910
(the 590th anniversary of the disputation “De Aqua et Terra” at Verona)
In the numbering of the poems in the Canzoniere, and the line references in the prose works, the
arrangement of the Oxford Dante has been followed.
“Se Dio ti lasci, Lettor, prender frutto Di tua lezion.”
Inf. xx. 19