Verzamelde werken. Deel 4. Cultuurgeschiedenis 2

[Middeleeuwen (vervolg)]

An early reference to Dante's canzone ‘Le dolci rime d'amor’ in England^*

English literature owes to Chaucer a very acquaintance with Dante; and the Divina Commedia, as is natural, was the work upon which Dante's fame with Chaucer rested. His minor works became known in England at a much later period. The earliest explicit reference to the Convivio, mentioned by Dr Paget Toynbee in his exhaustive work Dante in English Literature from Chaucer to Cary, is by William Barker in 1568 (I, p. 41), while the familiarity with the Vita Nuova and De Monarchia seems to be of still later date. It is true that a possible acquaintance of Chaucer with the canzone heading the fourth treatise of the Convivio might be inferred from a passage in the Wife of Bath's Tale and from the Balade of Gentillesse. Both contain a discussion of the true nature of nobility, and Dr Toynbee thinks it almost beyond doubt that Chaucer was indebted for his arguments to Dante's canzone (op. cit. pp. 13, 16). This seems to me too bold, as the discussion of the origin of nobility was already common from the thirteenth century onward, and the conclusion that nobility is founded in virtue was generally accepted.

In my opinion the similarity between Dante's canzone and Chaucer's views on the true nature of nobility is not strong enough to admit the conclusion that Chaucer knew the Italian poem. Dr Toynbee, nevertheless, is quite right in pointing out that the canzone at a very early date was the subject of a discussion likely to spread some knowledge of its contents far beyond Italy. Messer Lapo da Castiglionchio

* Modern language review, Vol. XVII no. 1, January 1922, p. 74-77.

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(c. 1310-1381), in a letter to his son Bernardo, gave an account of the examination of Dante's arguments by the famous jurist, Bartolo da Sassoferrato (c. 1313-1356).

This treatise of Bartolus on nobility has led to an early reference to Dante's canzone by an English author, which, as far as I can ascertain, has, so far, escaped the attention of scholars. It is due not to a poet but to a student of law, Nicholas Upton, who lived from about 1400 to 1457. His career has been traced by Professor Pollard in the Dictionary of National Biography (LVIII, p. 39). He was a fellow of New College Oxford and a bachelor of civil and canon law. Though he took the lower orders and received several prebends, his occupations were of a lay character. He fought in France under Suffolk and Talbot, and was at Orleans during the famous siege as an attendant of the Earl of Salisbury.

After the latter's death Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, ‘observing the parts and virtues of Mr Upton, who at that time was not meanly skilled in both the laws, persuaded him to lay aside the sword and to take up his books again and follow his studies’. At the duke's request, Upton wrote his Libellus de Officio militari, a work on heraldry, nobility and military law, consisting of four books. It was published in 1654 by Edward Bysshe, Garter king of arms¹, who dedicated his edition to John Selden.

Upton appears to be well versed in the work of Bartolus, as might be expected. He even begins the first chapter of his book with this famous name: ‘Famosissimus ille pater legum et doctor eximius, dominus Bartholus de Saxoferrato in lege prima C. de dignitatibus li. XII. nobilitatem sic diffinit’ (p. 3). He proceeds to quote him several times and especially in chapter XIX of the first book, which is inscribed: ‘Ad quos descendit nobilitas’ (p. 64):

Est vero nobilis et si ex nobili descendat, seu ex vili, vel plebeo, ut concludit dominus Bartholus in tractatu suo de nobilitate, circa medium, quem posuit in lege prima C. de dignitatibus li. XII. Et sic nichil aliud est vera nobilitas, quam vita humana, clara virtutibus per electionem et habitum anime intellectualis exterius operantis. Nec tamen omnis nobilis est generosus, ut supradixi, quia ille est gene-

1 Nicolai Uptoni De Studio militari libri quatuor. Johan. de Bado Aureo, Tractatus de armis. Henrici Spelmanni Aspilogia. Edoardus Bissaeus e codicibus mss primus publici juris fecit, notisque illustravit. Londini, Typis Rogeri Norton, impensis Johannis Martin et Jacobi Allestrye sub signo Campanae in coemiterio D. Pauli, 1654. The library of the University of Leyden possesses a copy of the work.

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rosus, qui descendit a parentela generosa et¹ semper nota, quod sanguis non purgatur usque ad quartum gradum inclusive: quamvis talis nobilitatus gaudeat regno, sive regalia, ut Rex Cipri, de quo supradixi, unde adhuc opiniones quorundam referam.

Fuit enim quidam nomine Danty², de Florencia, vulgaris poeta, laudabilis, recollendeque memorie, qui circa hoc fecit quandam cantilenam in vulgari, La doulce Ryme damour. In qua recitat tres opinion es antiquorum: quarum prima talis fuit. Quidam imperator dixit, quod, Nobilitas est antiqua eris sive divitiarum possessio cum pulcris regiminibus³ et moribus. Alii dixerunt quod antiqui boni mores hominem faciunt nobilem, et hii de diviciis minime curare videntur. Alii autem dixerunt, quod ille dicitur nobilis, qui descendit de patre, aut avo, nobili. Omnes tamen has opiniones reprobat ipse Bartholus, ibidem, ultimo determinans, quod quicunque est virtuosus, ille est nobilis in illa virtute. Nec nobilitas esse potest ubi virtus deest.

After quoting several other authorities Upton concludes by saying: ‘Et sic potest esse verum quod dixit poeta Danty⁴, ut supra dixi’.

Of the six manuscripts mentioned by Bysshe in his preface, the Cottonianus Nero C III appears to have been the basis of his text. Whether the manuscript British Museum Additional MS. 30946, described by Mr Pollard as ‘possibly the original’, was among Bysshe's material, cannot be ascertained. Professor Geyl, at my request, was so kind as to compare the passage in these two manuscripts with the printed text. The Add. MS. proved to contain only a few words of the whole citation from Bartolus. Pages 63 and 64 of the edition are entirely omitted to the words: ‘(Et sic) Bartholus ultimo determinans etc.... ubi virtus deest’; pp. 65 and 66 are also missing. As the mention of Bartolus' conclusion without the preceding argument has no sense at all, Add. MS. 30946 cannot be held to represent the original redaction by Upton himself, the more so as it inverts the order of the four books, enumerated by the author himself in his preface (p. 3).

It need scarcely be said that Upton's reference to Dante's canzone does not involve an acquaintance with the poem itself. Rather might it be said that it excludes such a knowledge. He renders the initial

1 Bysshe: generosa. Et semper nota quod...

2 Id.: Dancy.

3 Id.: regibus.

4 Bysshe: Dancy.

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words, as far as he could understand them, as if they were French. Moreover, he has not even read his Bartolus with due attention.

Bartolus' treatise on nobility forms an excursus to his commentary Ad duodecimum librum Codicis De dignitatibus. It must have had an early and wide circulation as a separate pamphlet. The well-known Dante-scholar Karl Witte published it¹ from an edition of 1493². Witte's remark, however, that the little treatise had been overlooked by the editors of Bartolus' works, so that it remained unknown even to Savigny, is an error, for, though missing in the Turin edition of 1589, the Lyons edition of Bartolus' works, 1581, contains it in the right place³.

By comparing Bartolus' text with Upton's it is clear that the latter followed closely his authority, abridging it here and there. Let it suffice to quote the lines in which the opening words of the canzone occur:

Et ut circa haec veritas elucescat, multorum opiniones referam. Fuit enim quidam nomine Dantes Allegeri de Florentia poeta vulgaris laudabilis et recolendae memoriae: qui circa hoc fecit unam cantilenam in vulgari quae incipit Le dolze rime damor che solea trovare li mei penseri⁴, etc..

Et ibi recitat tres opiniones antiquorum. Prima est quae dicit quod quidam imperator⁵ dixit quod nobilitas est antiqua aeris et divitiarum possessio cum pulchris regiminibus et moribus. Alii dixerunt quod antiqui boni mores faciunt hominem nobilem et isti de divitiis non curant. Tertii dicunt quod ille est nobilis qui descendit ex patre vel avo valenti, et omnes istas tres opiniones reprobat. Ultimo ipse determinat, quod quicunque est virtuosus, est nobilis. Item potest esse nobilitas etiam ubi non est virtus, et sic nobilitas habet in se plus quam virtus: exemplum in puella verecunda. Nam verecundia est diversa a virtute, et tamen in ea est nobilitas, etc..

Bartolus himself misinterpreted Dante by saying: ‘Alii dixerunt

1 De Bartolo a Saxoferrato Dantis Allighierii studioso commentatiuncula, Halle, 1861, reprinted in Karl Witte, Dante-Forschungen, Altes und Neues, 1, Halle, 1869, no. XXIV, p. 461.

2 ‘Infrascripti utiles et solaciosi tractatuli Bartoli legum doctoris famosissimi hic continentur... col. Impressi sunt presentes tractatuli Bartoli Liptzk per Gregorius(!) Boticher Anno Domini MCCCCXCIII die quinta mensis Octobris.’ A copy of this Leipzig incunabulum is in the Library of the University of Leyden.

3 Vol. IV, f. 46 v., In tres codicis libros.

4 The Lyons edition has corrected the Italian quotation.

5 By this emperor Dante meant Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.

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quod antiqui boni mores faciunt hominem nobilem et isti de divitiis non curant’. For Dante referred to an opinion, which he wished to refute, as he explains himself in the Convivio, trattato IV, cap. 3: ‘E dico che altri fu di più lieve sapere, che, pensando e rivolgendo questa definizione in ogni parte, levò via l'ultima particola, cioè i belli costumi, e tennesi alla prima, cioè all' antica ricchezza; e secondochè 'l testo par dubitare, forse per non avere i belli costumi, non volendo perdere il nome di gentilezza, difiniò quella secondochè per lui facea, cioè possessione d'antica ricchezza’.

Upton on his part did not observe that Bartolus is still rendering Dante's opinions in saying: ‘et omnes istas tres opiniones reprobat (scil. Dante).’ and ascribes to Bartolus the refutation due to Dante. Only where Bartolus in his turn refutes Dante's opinion, expressed in the words: ‘È gentilezza dovunque è virtute, Ma non virtute ov' ella’, etc.¹, Upton correctly states Bartolus' conclusion.

The form Danty, used by Upton, could hardly be derived by him from the Latin text of Bartolus, which has Dantes. It would seem to occur also in the catalogue of the library of Henry VIII, but, as Dr Toynbee gives the quotation in modern English (p. 32), I cannot make sure of it, and must leave it open, how Upton, apparently not knowing from Chaucer the forms Dant, Dante, Daunte, came to this form Danty.

It is a curious coincidence that the rare references to Dante in English literature between Chaucer's time and the sixteenth century have all of them something to do with Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Humphrey himself presented books of Boccaccio, Petrarch and Dante to the University of Oxford (Toynbee, p. 20). John Lydgate's The Falls of Princes, in which Dante's name is mentioned thrice, was undertaken at the instance of his patron, the Duke of Gloucester (Ibid., p. 18). So was Upton's Libellus de Officio militari, in which, probably for the first time, Dante as the author of the Convivio was introduced into England in the train of the great Italian jurist.

1 Explained by Dante in cap. 19 of the Convivio, tratt. IV.