The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-05
DANTE ALLIGHIERI IN TIE CASTLE
OF LIZZANA.

About two miles from the romantic town
Of Roveredo, on the post road from thence to
Verona, passing through the Val Lagarina by
the course of the winding Adige, rises an alb
rupt and precipitous mass of limestone,
which, on one side, seems to have been vio-
aently separated from the strata in its neigh
boIbood; on the other, sinks down by a
gradual de~clivity towards the general level.
ON the slope of this rock, high above the
road. are a few courses of an old wall of
rough but regular masonry; they measure
about 15 feet in length by II in height, and
are partly screened by trees: these are the
lest remains of a once famous castle in which,
in the early part of the fourteenth century,
Dante Alligbieri was an honored guest.
The castle of Lizzana-for thus it is still
called-is believed to be as old as the con-
quest OF the Romans, and to have been
erected, probably, by the patrician family
Liciuia, from whom its name is thought to
have been derived. In the time of the Lom-
bards, it was held by Ragilone di Lagara. In
1014, the Emperor Henry the Second was
entertained here on his way back to Germany.
In the twelfth century, the Guelph Jacopino,
Count of Lizzana and lord of Roveredo, re-
sided here: he was overpowered by the
Ghibellines, but subsequently returned to the
castle, and became Seignor of all the valley
of Lagaro. On his death, the lordship
passed, by the marriage of his daughter and
n6lT, lnIO tu6 uODl6 Iau1llN OI Gas
telbarco. There, from the twelfth to
the fifteenth century, the Counts of Castel-
barco held their brilliant courts.
The Venetians, in 1439, put an end to them
and to the castle at the same time. The re-
public occupied Roveredo, and, DESTROYS to
obtain Lizzana, accused the Count, who then
possessed it, of bad faith-a vulgar trick of
tyrants in all ages. To the meek remon-
STRANGE of the Count, the Venetians replied
NTH their artillery. and fha vnnprahln
castle never recovered from the rough
treatment it then received. The Counts
of Castelbarco, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, were intimately con-
nected with the reignipg lords of Verona. Gug-
lielmo da Castelbarco was the chief friend
of Alberto della Scala, who succeeded his
brother Mastino as ruler of Verona in 1877.
In 1885, Guglielmo was appointed by Alberto
Podesta of Verona; in 1888 he was reelected,
and confirmed again in the Office in 1899; in
1860 Alberto appointed him his vicar in the
valleys of the Giudicarie; in 1902, at the
urgent desire of the Bishop of Trent, he went
to Verona to endeavor to negotiate a peace
with Bartolomeo della Scala, the eldest son
and successor of Alberto, and by his personal
influence with the Scaligeri, and his courteous
and amiable manners, accomplished a diff
cult and delicate undertaking much to the sat
i~sfaction of the pugnacious prelate, who
sorely repented him, says the histo-
rian Girolamo dalla Corte, of the turmoil
and contests he had excited. On the death
of Bartolomeo della Scala, in 1904, his
brother Alboino succeeded him, and, four
years later, at his particular desire, his
younger brother, Can Francesca, better
known as Can Grande, was joined with him
in authority. Alboino was of a meek and
timid spirit. and much averse to military pur-
suits, in which his younger brother delighted.
1t is highly probable that, even before this,
Can Glande had been of much assistance to
Alboirc 2. and had made his influence felt at
court. Ey both of them Guglielmo da Cas-
telbarcC vas held in the highest esteem; he
was, we are told by Dalla Corte, their chief
councillor, and no undertaking of importance
was engaged in, no decision come to, without
first taking his advice. When in Verona, the
Count was probably an inmate of the palace
of the Scaligeri, and there made, as circum-
stances would show, the acquaintance and
. friendship of the exiled poet.
At what precise period, however, Dante
availed himself of the invitation of Gugli-
elmo to visit him in his castle of Lizzana,
cannot be fixed with such chronological accu-
lacy as some other of the poets whereabouts,
and depends on a previous question, on which
his biographers have been much divided, as
to when it was that Dante came to regard
Verona as his second home. In all proba-
bility, this was not till after the capitulation
VI II tulOlbO 4 III III IuClI NDlD6l-
line friends in the castle of Montaccianico
in Mugello, in the summer of 1906. Up to
this time Dante had lived in hope of ~restora-
lion to Florence by force of arms or political
changes, and moved about with q sort of
ubiquity, being found wherever his personal
influence might help to promote his object.
but after this capitulation, his honor and his
interests would dictate another course; and
>then Verona became his chief 0stel0. Yet
there is satisfactory historical evidence to
show that he had visited the Scaligeri before
this period, and may have made
sCme s~ojourn at their court. In 130S-9
Dante left Italy for France, and remained
abroad about two years, visiting Belgium
and probably England, and returning
back through Germany. We may trace his
footsteps in the cantos of his Divina Com
media. His visit to the castle of Lizzana ani
the Val Lagarina may have been between
1904 and 1906, or after that, but before 1908
1t does not appear that he was asked to sign al
a witness any document on the occasion, tt
which reference might afterwards be made
he did not write his name on any piece o
perishable parchment, nor did he carve hi
initials on the crumbling surface of the lime
stone rock; but he did what was much NOR,
enduring: he left an everlasting record of hi
visit in the imperishable verses of his divin,
poem. His graphic description, in a few
words, of the Slavino di Marco, as seen from
the summit of the slope III which the re
mains of the castle of Lizzana stand, attes
his presence here, and will, SO long as Ital,
shall last.
From no other site than this commanding
point of view can the astonished visitor sur
vey the. stupendous ruin of the limeston,
strata, and take fin at a glance all the fea
lures which Dante has SO artistically de
- IL II 80 A. -