The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-09-10
DANTE MoUlDEU OF ITALY
Continued from Page ~

(Purg. XXX the outrages perpetrated
at Agnani by the tools of Philip the
Fair of France, Nogaret and Sciarra
Colonna, against the same Pontiff. If
he was a fiery Ghibelline, he was still
more a fervent Catholic.
L.. Poet and Mystic.
In those wonderful years of the
thirteenth century, springtime and
summer. dawn and high noon of a no
BILE civilization, the dreamer of great
visions, the doer of heroic deeds met
in Dante. Alive to the problems of
the world around him, to the struggle
between the Empire and the Papacy,
Italian to the core and dreaming of
the glory that should be her dover, a
citizen of restless Florence, caught in
the grinding mechanism of political
factions, one of it's Gid Priors during
its most turbulent times, exiled from
the soil he loved and plotting his re.
turn at the head of an armed band
he never knew how to play the neutral
or the coward His hands never
shirked the task that summoned him
Yet he could dream of heaven and it's
glories as he watched Arnolfo build
ing that Cathedral "of the Flower,
which in later age Brunelleschi was
to dome with majesty. He was lost
in wonder as his friend Giotto limned
the ecstatic face of holy Francis, who
bore the marks of the Passion OF
Christ on his mortal frame. The glo
ries of the baptistry in which he had
been incorporated into the Church OF
Christ, I'll milo bel San Giovanni" as
he lovingly called it, entranced his ar
tfstic sense.
- His Love for Beatrice.
Lost to all earthly things, he gazed
on the fair child of the Portinari, the
Beatrice of his New Life" of his
sonnets and his divine epic, as she
passed with the maids of Florence
along the Arno. Her, his poets fancy
his Catholic faith transformed anG
glorifed. To him, she became WIS
dom, and Truth and Beauty undefiled
His hand in hers he was to tot
through the dark wood of life so splen
didly described in the first canto o.
his Inferno" where he. was beset By
the leopard and lion and ravenou.
wolf. By her aid, he would avoid tn,
snares laid for his feet. Splendit
dreams that visited eyes purged o
earth's mists and piercing far beyond
the realms of space and time! Dream
er, yet doer also. AS he could blent
poetry with doctrine, so could he com
bine the poets dream with the hero!
act. Dante Alighieri is one of the few
among the giants of the worlds liter
allure in whom the accomplishments o
the outer man matched the dreams o
the inspired seer.
Byron on Dante.
Byron, to whom we can forgive man,
poetic sins because of his genuine ad
miration for the great Florentin
wrote the Prophecy of Dante Tn
poem is not of the highest flight l
droops in mid-air and does not reac
its attempted crest But the prophec
of Dante's future greatness placed b
the English poet on the lips of tn
mighty Florentine, is well-foundet
For Dante not only created liters
ture, a masterpiece and Language
He made Italy. To whole generation
he personifies. Italy and her ideals
His voice Is hers in her sweetest an
loftiest accents. Ns
Inspired Later Genius.
From, Dante's brain and heart leape
the wisdom and the song of his coul
try. And if the painting and the arcl
itecture of Gietto,~- Cimabue,- Arnolf
and Pisano antedated the Divine Con
media" the masterpieces of their fo
lowers were deeply influenced by thf
Incompatible teacher. The sonnets
Petrarch slumber in Dante's "Canz
MI" The Madonnas Of Raphael al
but. pale copies of that Maiden Mothe
wheHs Alighieri so divinely celebrate
in his loveliest lyric, one that swell
from that mystic fount of poesy nj
den In some vale of Paradise an
known only to the Sons of God. tn
beauty, not of earth. that glows on tn
faces of the martyrs and virgins I
Fra Angelica is but reflection of tt
glory with which Dante saw the