HKB
[Footnote 36: See Dr. Barlow's Sixth Centenary Festivals of Dante. (1866.)]
[Footnote 37: These notices have been carefully collected by Pelli, who seems to have left little to glean (Memorie, &c. Ed. 2da, 1823). A few additions have been made by Gerini (Mem. Stor. della Lunigiana*), and Troya (*Veltro Allegorico), but they are not of much importance. Arrivabene (Secolo di Dante) has brought together a mass of illustration which is very useful, and would be more so, if he were more careful, and quoted his authorities. Balbo arranges these materials with sense and good feeling; though, as a writer, he is below his subject. A few traits and anecdotes may be found in the novelists--as Sacchetti.]
The Commedia, at the first glance, shows the traces of its author's life. It is the work of a wanderer. The very form in which it is cast is that of a journey, difficult, toilsome, perilous, and full of change. It is more than a working out of that touching phraseology of the middle ages, in which "the way" was the technical theological expression for this mortal life; and "viator" meant man in his state of trial, as "comprehensor" meant man made perfect, having attained to his heavenly country. It is more than merely this. The writer's mind is full of the recollections and definite images of his various journeys. The permanent scenery of the Inferno and Purgatorio, very variously and distinctly marked, is that of travel. The descent down the sides of the Pit, and the ascent of the Sacred Mountain, show one familiar with such scenes--one who had climbed painfully in perilous passes, and grown dizzy on the brink of narrow ledges over sea or torrent. It is scenery from the gorges of the Alps and Apennines, or the terraces and precipices of the Riviera. Local reminiscences abound:--the severed rocks of the Adige Valley--the waterfall of S. Benedetto--the crags of Pietra-pana and S. Leo, which overlook the plains of Lucca and Ravenna--the "fair river" that flows among the poplars between Chiaveri and Sestri--the marble quarries of Carrara--the "rough and desert ways between Lerici and Turbia," and those towery cliffs, going sheer into the deep sea at Noli, which travellers on the Corniche road some thirty years ago may yet remember with fear. Mountain experience furnished that picture of the traveller caught in an Alpine mist and gradually climbing above it; seeing the vapours grow thin, and the sun's orb appear faintly through them; and issuing at last into sunshine on the mountain top, while the light of sunset was lost already on the shores below:
Ai raggi, morti già nei bassi lidi:--Purg. 17.
or that image of the cold dull shadow over the torrent, beneath the Alpine fir--
Un'ombra smorta Qual sotto foglie verdi e rami nigri Sovra suoi freddi rivi, l'Alpe porta:--Purg. 33.[38]
or of the large snow-flakes falling without wind, among the mountains--
d'un cader lento Piovean di fuoco dilatate falde Come di neve in Alpe senza vento.--Inferno, 14.[39]
[Footnote 38:
A death-like shade-- Like that beneath black boughs and foliage green O'er the cool streams in Alpine glens display'd.--WRIGHT.]
[Footnote 39:
O'er all the sandy desert falling slow, Were shower'd dilated flakes of fire, like snow On Alpine summits, when the wind is low.--IBID.]