to Dante's home comfort that his wife was related to Corso Donati,
who led the Neri and swaggered in his bullying way about the city with
proprietary, intolerant airs that must have been infuriating to a man
with Dante's stern sense of right and justice. It was Corso who brought
about Dante's exile; but he himself survived only six years, and was
then killed, by his own wish, on his way to execution, rather than be
humiliated in the city in which he had swayed. Dante, whose genius
devised a more lasting form of reprisal than any personal encounter
could be, has depicted him in the "Purgatorio" as on the road to Hell.

But this is going too fast. In 1300, when Dante was thirty-five,
he was sufficiently important to be made one of the six priors of
the city, and in that capacity was called upon to quell a Neri and
Bianchi disturbance. It is characteristic of him that he was a party
to the banishment of the leaders of both factions, among whom was
his closest friend, Guido Cavalcanti the poet, who was one of the
Bianchi. Whether it was because of Guide's illness in his exile, or
from what motive, we shall not know; but the sentence was lightened in
the case of this Bianco, a circumstance which did not add to Dante's
chances when the Neri, having plotted successfully with Charles of
Valois, captured supreme power in Florence. This was in the year 1301,
Dante being absent from that city on an embassy to Rome to obtain help
for the Bianchi. He never came back; for the Neri plans succeeded;
the Neri assumed control; and in January, 1302, he was formally fined
and banished. The nominal charge against him was of misappropriating
funds while a prior; but that was merely a matter of form. His real
offence was in being one of the Bianchi, an enemy of the Neri, and
a man of parts.

In the rest of Dante's life Florence had no part, except in his
thoughts. How he viewed her the "Divine Comedy" tells us, and that he
longed to return we also know. The chance was indeed once offered,
but under the impossible condition that he should do public penance
in the Baptistery for his offence. This he refused. He wandered here
and there, and settled finally in Ravenna, where he died in 1321. The
"Divine Comedy" anticipating printing by so many years--the invention
did not reach Florence until 1471--Dante could not make much popular
way as a poet before that time; but to his genius certain Florentines
were earlier no strangers, not only by peru