Dante Alighieri (23 page)

 

    
¹
Lord Lindsay's
History of Christian Art
, vol. ii. p. 174.

    
²
Dante mentions Giotto in the
Commedia
: “Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, so that the fame of the other is obscured” (
Purg.
xi. 94-6).

    
³
Lord Lindsay says: “There can be little doubt, from the prominent position assigned Dante in this composition, as well as from his personal appearance, that this fresco was painted in, or immediately after, the year 1300, when he was one of the Priors of the Republic, and in the thirty-fifth year of his age”. There is, however, a difficulty in accepting this early date for Giotto's portrait of Dante, in that in 1332 the Palazzo del Podestà was seriously damaged by fire, and had to be partially rebuilt, as is recorded by Villani: “a dì 28 di Febbraio s' apprese fuoco nel palagio del comune ove abita la podestà, e arse tutto il tetto del vecchio palazzo e le due parti del nuovo dalle prime volte in su. Per la qual cosa s' ordinò per lo comune che si rifacesse tutto in volte infino a' tetti.” (bk. x. ch. 182). It is urged, therefore, that even if the fire did not destroy the fresco, it would almost certainly have left traces of damage. Consequently some recent critics have argued that Giotto must have painted the fresco later than 1331, after the building had been repaired. In this case the portraits of Dante and of those associated with him in the fresco must have been painted from memory. But it is quite possible that the fresco may have been painted in 1300 and that any damage caused by the fire of 1332 may have been repaired either by Giotto himself or by one of his pupils.

    
⁴
In the notice of Giotto in his
Liber de Civitatis Florentiae Famosis Civibus
: “Pinxit speculorum suffragio semetipsum, sibique contemporaneum Dantem, in tabula altaris Capellae Palatii Potestatis”. A still earlier reference, however, occurs (as is supposed) in the following poem of Antonio Pucci, the author of the
Centiloquio
, who died c. 1390 :—

        
(
Rime di Trecentisti Minori
, a cura di G. Volpi, 1907, pp. 105-6.)

    
⁵
In his
Vita Dantis
: “Ejus effigies in Basilica Sanctae Crucis, et in Capella Praetoris Urbani utrobique in parietibus extat ea forma, qua revera in vita fuit a Giotto quodam optimo ejus temporis pictore egregie depicta”. The portrait is mentioned also by Landino in the
Vita di Dante
prefixed to his commentary on the
Divina Commedia
(1481): “La sua effigie resta ancora di mano di Giotto in Santa Croce, e nella capella del Podestà”.

    
⁶
F. J. Bunbury, writing in 1852, says: “The Bargello of Florence, which at present contains the prisons, and some public offices of the Government, was once the Palace of the Podestà, . . . but for centuries the chamber [in which was the portrait of Dante] had been coated with white-wash, divided into two storeys, and partitioned for prisoners' cells.” The whole Bargello building is now used as a museum.

    
⁷
Norton was writing in 1865.

    
⁸
Of the Grand Duke.

    
⁹
21 July, 1840.

    
¹⁰
“The enthusiasm of the Florentines,” says Lord Lindsay, “on the announcement of the discovery, resembled that of their ancestors when Borgo Allegri received its name from their rejoicings in sympathy with Cimabue. ‘L' abbiamo il nostro poeta!' was the universal cry, and for days afterwards the Bargello was thronged with a continuous succession of pilgrim visitors.”

    
¹¹
This letter was written originally by Kirkup in Italian—it was a (not very accurate) translation which was published in the
Spectator
. G. B. Cavalcaselle printed a corrected translation in the same paper, on 13 July.

    
¹²
In Cavalcaselle's version: “to the great damage of the expression as well as the character and costume”.

    
¹³
Cavalcaselle: “The likeness of the face
is changed
; and the three colours . . . are no longer there”.

    
¹⁴
The original drawing, made on the inside of the vellum cover of a copy of the 1531 edition of the
Convivio
, was acquired by Colonel W. J. Gillum, at the sale of Kirkup's library at Sotheby's in December, 1871, and was recently (April, 1908) presented by him to the Museo Nazionale (in the Bargello) at Florence. Kirkup gave the following interesting account to a friend (Mrs. Gillum, by whom it was kindly communicated to the writer), in Florence in 1873 of how he managed to get the drawing made. “I went to the Bargello Chapel, along with others of the public, and I had that book (the
Convivio
) and some colours in my pocket. For a while I managed to draw, holding the book within my wide felt hat, but by and by the man in charge of the room came up to me and said: ‘You know, Signor Barone, the Grand Duke does not allow any copying'. I answered: ‘I am making some notes,' and went on with the work. After a time the man came again, and said: ‘It is late, Signor Barone, time for me to lock up and go to my dinner. Every one but yourself is gone.'—‘You can go. You may lock me in to finish my notes.' As soon as I was alone, I wheeled up the stage which had been left by the workmen who removed the plaster, mounted it, and took a tracing on thin paper, so as to obtain the exact outline and precise size. I then replaced the stage, and took up my drawing again quite comfortably. So my ‘notes' were finished before my gaoler returned from dinner.” [Kirkup's description of himself as “Barone” in 1840 is an anachronism. He assumed the title (through a misunderstanding) after being created by King Victor Emmanuel, on the restoration of the Italian kingdom, a “Cavaliere di SS. Maurizio e Lazzaro”.]

    
¹⁵
The tracing which Kirkup made at the same time as the drawing was given by him to his friend Gabriele Rossetti, who handed it on to his son, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was sold after the death of the latter in 1882.

    
¹⁶
Interesting details of the discovery of the fresco and of the making of the drawing of the portrait of Dante are given in three letters from Kirkup to Gabriele Rossetti, which are printed in
Gabriele Rossetti
:
A Versified Autobiography
, edited by W. M. Rossetti, 1901. (See
Appendix
C.)

    
¹⁷
As a matter of fact the art of taking casts from the human face was known to the ancients. It was at least 300 years old in the days of Pliny, by whom reference is made to it in his
Historia Naturalis
: “Hominis imaginem gypso e facie ipsa primus omnium expressit, ceraque in eam formam gypsi infusa emendare instituit Lysistratus Sicyonius”; i.e. Lysistratus of Sicyon (
c
. 320
B.C
.) was the first who took a cast of the human face in plaster, and produced copies from this mould by pouring into it melted wax (xxxv. § 44).

    
¹⁸
An extract from this biography, along with some interesting remarks by Kirkup, is given in a letter from the latter to Charles Lyell from Florence, 27 February, 1842 (printed in
The Poems of the Vita Nuova and Convito of Dante
, translated by Charles Lyell, 1842, pp. xvii-xix).

    
¹⁹
The mask possessed by Ricci, who made use of it for the purposes of his statue of Dante in Santa Croce in Florence, eventually also passed into the hands of Kirkup, by whom it was presented to the Oxford Dante Society.

    
²⁰
This last is now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. (See plate opposite.)

    
²¹
This was the opinion also of the eminent surgeon, the late Sir James Paget.

    
²²
Corrado Ricci, on the other hand, who persistently denies the genuineness of the death-mask, does not hesitate to declare that the trace of the sculptor's tool is everywhere evident! (see
L
'
Ultimo Rifugio di Dante
, p. 279).

    
²³
Sir James Paget pointed out that this depression of the tip of the nose, which one is accustomed to regard as characteristic of Dante's face, was just such as would have been produced by the weight of the plaster in taking the cast.

‘L' alto trionfo del regno verace'.
²⁴

    
²⁴
“The high triumph of the true kingdom” (
Par
. xxx. 98).

    
²⁵
That Dante had a beard we know from himself (
Purg
. xxxi. 68).

    
²⁶
A representation of the mask, in two positions, is given on plate opposite p. 88.

    
²⁷
See plate, opposite p. 128.

    
²⁸
Compare the reference to Charles Martel of Hungary,
Paradiso
, viii. 55-7.

    
²⁹
“Through all the circles of the woeful kingdom” (
Purg
. vii. 22).

    
³⁰
“Who was come from the human to the divine, from time to eternity” (
Par.
xxxi. 37-8).

    
³¹
See plate opposite.

    
³²
“L' effige sua propria si vede nella chiesa di Santa Croce, quasi al mezzo chiesa dalla mano sinistra andando verso l' altare maggiore, e ritratta al naturale ottimamente per dipintore perfetto di quel tempo” (
Vita di Dante
, ed. Brunone Bianchi, 1883, p. xxii). This portrait cannot have been painted “from the life” in Florence, since Dante left Florence never to return within a year or two of Taddeo Gaddi's birth, who was little more than twenty when Dante died.

    
³³
c
. 1300-1366.

    
³⁴
“Sotto il tramezzo che divide la chiesa, a man sinistra sopra il Crocifisso di Donato, dipinse a fresco una storia di San Francesco, d' un miracolo che fece nel risuscitar un putto che era morto cadendo da un verone coll' apparire in aria. Ed in questa storia ritrasse Giotto suo maestro, Dante poeta e Guido Cavalcanti: altri dicono sè stesso” (
Opere di Vasari
,
ed.
Milanesi, 1878, vol. i. pp. 573-4).

    
³⁵
See
Opere di Vasari
, ed. cit., vol. i. p. 574
n
., vol. vii. p. 711
n
.

    
³⁶
See plate, opposite p. 119.

    
³⁷
In 1864, in view of the approaching celebration in Florence of the sixth centenary of Dante's birth, the Minister of Public Instruction commissioned Gaetano Milanesi and Luigi Passerini to report upon the most authentic portrait of the poet, as it was proposed to have a medallion executed in commemoration of the centenary. Milanesi and Passerini communicated the results of their invistigations to the Minister in a letter which was published in the
Giornale del Centenario
for 20 July, 1864. After stating their doubts with regard to the Bargello portrait, and disposing of the claims of two other portraits contained in MSS. preserved in Florence, they go on to say: “Very precious on the other hand is the portrait prefixed to Codex 1040 in the Riccardi Library, which contains the minor poems of Dante, together with those of Messer Bindi Bonichi, and which appears from the arms and initials to have belonged to Paolo di Jacopo Giannotti, who was born in 1430. This portrait, which is about half the size of life, is in water-colour, and represents the poet with his characteristic features at the age of rather more than forty. It is free from the exaggeration of later artists, who, by giving undue prominence to the nose and under-lip and chin, make Dante's profile resemble that of a hideous old woman. In our opinion this portrait is to be preferred to any other, especially for the purposes of a medallion.”