Campaigner

LETTERS
With the approach of the language developed in the trou- Florence, the heart of the Black
French army it became clear that badour circles of Iberian Spain and Guelph conspiracy, rather than
only a delegation to Boniface the Languedoc of southern France, laying siege to the northern city of
could save the city. At a confer- he told the history of the Floren- Bergamo, Henry did not respond
ence of the city's leaders it was tine coup d'&at and made known until it was too late.
urgently proposedthatDantelead his intention to write in a new Indeed, in his final years
the delegation, to which he ut- language, that is, the vernacular. Dante was truly a "party of one,"
tered his famous reply, "If I go At the same time, he made a defin- as his ancestor described him in the
who shall stay; if I stay who shall itive break with the exiled rem- "Paradiso." The Commedia, which
go?" nants of the White Guelphs. It is was probably written in those
Dante finally resolved that noteworthy that around this time years, is Dante's most complete
only he could persuade Boniface he stayed briefly in Arezzo with legacy to his successors in the
that the pope's own interests truly his friend and fellow exile Dr. struggle to organize humanity
lay in alliance with a league of Petrarch, the father of the great against the evils that assail it. And
independent cities. As he feared, poet who was Dante's political it was his successors who laid the
however, Boniface was consumed successor, foundation for Italy's Golden
by lust for territorial gain and Renaissance, and built up an interblind
to the degree to which he Organizing for the Future national tradition of Platonic huhad
placed himself in the control The last seventeen years of Dante's manism that has inspired the best
of the French army. However, the life were spent organizing for a political leaders in every era from
pope was only too well able to see future mobilization of Europe that day to this.
how dangerous Dante would be if against the Black Guelphs' domi- Thus after Dante's death it
he returned to Florence, and by nance. Contrary to academic was his friend Petrarch who asthe
simple expedient of holding scriveners, Dante was always sumed the leadership role in or-
Dante in Rome while sending the hardheaded in his estimations of ganizing the overthrow of Black
other two Florentine delegates the political scene. His policy dur- Guelph rule. While living in and
back with soft and lying words, ing the years 1310 to 1313, as set near Avignon, Petrarch directed
Boniface effectively disorganized out in De Monarchia and in a series the activities of the Brotherhood
the Florentines. By the time Dante of famous open letters, was to seek of the Common Life, the rise of an
set out to return to Florence, the out that political configuration English opposition to the Valois
political trap had been sprung, which could best allow men to dynasty, and the revival of repub-
The White Guelphs invited the realize the purpose of their exist- licanism in Italy and especially
French into the city, and for their ence: passing on and enriching the Florence. He explicitly champinaivet_
and cowardice were in . greatest achievements of those oned the Platonic outlook in opreturn
rewarded with banishment, who have come before, position to the Aristotelian nomi-
Dante had reached Siena when he The precondition for this, he nalism of the Black Guelph
learned of his own banishment; he argued, was first of all an end to aristocracy.
was later condemned to death in war. For this reason he took up At the time of his death in
absentia, the cause of the Holy Roman Em- 1374 the fire of Neoplatonic hu-
He was never to return to peror Henry VII as the secret manism was rekindled in Europe,
Florence. Some bitter satisfaction means to bring order to Italy, north and south. When the great
was his when he learned of the against the "dire rapaciousness" of Nicholas of Cusa, who had been
capture, humiliation, and death of the Black Guelph rulers of Flor- trained by the Brothers of the
Boniface VIII at the hands of his ence and other city-states who, he Common Life, arrived in Florence
former French allies in 1303. But charged, were flouting the higher in 1434 to meet the founders of the
for Dante this was already recog- order represented by the Emperor Florentine Renaissance, who had
nition that his political task now in the interest of their own greedy been steeped in Dante's work by
lay beyond the borders of Flor- heteronomy. But unfortunately Petrarch and Boccaccio, Dante's
ence, and even of Italy. Dante had a better sense of how to goal of recapturing Florence was
In 1304 he made this recogni- conduct war than Henry himself, fulfilled.
tion known in a small volume For although Dante urged Henry
entitled Vita Nuova. Writing in not to act like a typical feudal Stephen Pepper
the language of love, a poetical commander, and strike directly at New York City
78 June 1980 / CAMPAIGNER