rned to death ("talis perveniens igne comburatur sic quod
moriatur").[4]

From this time forth till his death Dante was an exile. The character of
the decrees is such that the charges brought against him have no force,
and leave no suspicion resting upon his actions as an officer of the
State. They are the outcome and expression of the bitterness of party
rage, and they testify clearly only to his having been one of the
leaders of the parties opposed to the pretensions of the Pope, and
desirous to maintain the freedom of Florence from foreign intervention.

In April Charles left Florence, "having finished," says Villani, the
eye-witness of these events, "that for which he had come, namely, under
pretext of peace, having driven the White party from Florence; but from
this proceeded many calamities and dangers to our city."

The course of Dante's external life in exile is hardly less obscure than
that of his early days. Much concerning it may be inferred with some
degree of probability from passages in his own writings, or from what is
reported by others; but of actual certain facts there are few. For a
time he seems to have remained with his companions in exile, of whom
there were hundreds, but he soon separated himself from them in grave
dissatisfaction, making a party by himself ('Paradiso,' xvii. 69), and
found shelter at the court of the Scaligeri at Verona. In August 1306 he
was among the witnesses to a contract at Padua. In October of the same
year he was with Franceschino, Marchese Malespina, in the district
called the Lunigiana, and empowered by him as his special procurator and
envoy to establish the terms of peace for him and his brothers with the
Bishop of Luni. His gratitude to the Malespini for their hospitality and
good-will toward him is proved by one of the most splendid compliments
ever paid in verse or prose, the magnificent eulogium of this great and
powerful house with which the eighth canto of the 'Purgatory' closes.
How long Dante remained with the Malespini, and whither he went after
leaving them, is unknown. At some period of his exile he was at Lucca
('Purgatorio,' xxiv. 45); Villani states that he was at Bologna, and
afterwards at Paris, and in many parts of the world. He wandered far and
wide in Italy, and it may well be that in the course of his years of
exile he went to Paris, drawn thither by the opportunities of learning
which the University afforded; but nothing is known definitely of his