Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Among the illustrious fathers of song who, in their own land, cannot cease to exercise dominion over the minds, characters, and destinies of all posterity,and who, beyond its frontiers, must continue to influence the taste, and help to form the genius, of those who shall exercise like authority in other countries,Dante Alighieri is, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable. This poet was descended from a very ancient stock, which, according to Boccaccio, traced its lineage to the Roman house of Frangipani,one of whose members, surnamed Eliseo, was said to have been an early settler, if not a principal founder, of the restored city of Florence, in the {Pg 1} reign of Charlemagne, after it had lain desolate for several centuries, subsequently to its destruction by Attila the Hun. From this Eliseo sprang a family, of which Dante gives, in the fifteenth and sixteenth cantos of his "Paradiso," such information, as he thought proper; making Cacciaguida (one of its most distinguished chiefs, who fell fighting in the crusade under the emperor Conrad III.,) say, rather ambiguously, of those who went before him, that "who they were, and whence they came, it is more honest to keep silence than to tell,"probably, however, intending no more than to disclaim vain boasting, but not by any means to disparage his progenitors, for whom, in the fifteenth canto of the "Inferno," he seems to claim the glory of having been of Roman descent, and fathers of Florence. Cacciaguida, having married a noble lady of Ferrara, gave to one of his sons by her the name of Aldighieri (afterwards softened to Alighieri), in honour of his consort. This Alighieri was the grandfather of Dante; and concerning him, Cacciaguida, in the last-mentioned canto, informs the poet, that, for some unnamed offence, his spirit has been more than a hundred years pacing round the first circle of the mountain of purgatory; adding, ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 65030
Author: Montgomery, James
Release Date: Apr 8, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851
Editor: Lardner, Dionysius, 1793-1859