one hand; and, on the other, the conventuali, who, taking a broader interpretation of the Rule, were not opposed to the possession and enjoyment of worldly goods, and the acquisition of spiritual dignities. This discord was going on with varying vicissitudes during the whole of Dante's life-time; and he clearly discerned the mischief it would do to the sanctity of the Order, and the great extravagance there was in either of these two extreme doctrines.

Bonaventura points out that those Franciscans who are more advanced in the path of virtue find themselves in opposition to those who are more backward, and hence the fierce dissensions among them. They will find out, when it is too late, the evil consequences of their disunion, for a whole section of the friars will before long be banished from the Order.

La sua famiglia, che si mosse dritta

Coi piedi alle sue orme, è tanto vôlta,
Che quel dinanzi a quel diretro gitta ;*

E tosto si vedrà della ricolta

Della mala coltura, quando il loglio

Si lagnerà + che l' arca gli sia tolta.

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* quel dinanzi a quel diretro gitta: The interpretation of this line which finds most favour among the Commentators is that of Lombardi. It is, that the Franciscans now set the point of their feet on that spot where St. Francis set his heel, showing that they were walking in precisely the opposite direction to that of their founder. I prefer, however, to follow Casini, who says: "Credo che Dante abbia voluto dire che quelli dei francescani che sono più innanzi nel cammino della virtù si trovano in contrasto con quelli che son più indietro, insomma che c'è vivissima lotta fra spirituali e conventuali." Casini does not think that Lombardi's interpretation gives the full rendering of the thought in Dante's mind, which is wholly upon the discord then existing among the Franciscans.

+ quando il loglio Si lagnerà: This of course alludes to the parable in St. Matt. xiii, 30: "Let both grow together until the

His family (the Franciscans) that had set out in the
right way with feet planted in his footprints, has so
much turned round, that it casts him who is in front
upon him who is behind; and soon shall it be seen
by the harvesting how bad has been the tillage,
when the tares shall complain that the granary has
been taken from them.

Yet, if any one were to examine one by one the individual friars of the Order, he would still find a few that are faithful to the Rule of their founder.

Ben dico, chi cercasse a foglio a foglio

Nostro volume,* ancor † troveria carta

U' leggerebbe: 'Io mi son quel ch' io soglio.' ‡

harvest and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them but gather the wheat into my barn." The more general explanation is "quando il traviato frate si lagnerà che gli sia tolto il Paradiso per essere sepolto nell' Inferno;" but Casini, after remarking that the passage is one of very difficult interpretation, as far as history goes, thinks, as Dante is evidently alluding to some circumstance of a date not much later than 1300, and to which Ubertino da Casale and Matteo d' Acquasparta were strangers (ll. 124-126), that Dante's words may well refer to the Constitution of John XXII (in April, 1317) against the spirituali, when, on the question being discussed whether the Franciscans should "habere granaria et cellaria," it was decreed that the matter should be one for the decision of the superiors of the convents, and a sharp rebuff was thereby given to the spirituali, and a warning conveyed to them to adhere strictly to their original profession of poverty.

*a foglio a foglio Nostro volume: The volume is the Franciscan Order, and its leaves are the Friars.

+ ancor, etc. This passage reminds one of 1 Kings xix, 18, where Jehovah says to Elijah: "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal," etc.

son quel ch' io soglio: Equivalent to, "Io sono quale solevano essere i francescani primitivi." Casini in a note on Inf. xxvii, 48, "Là dove soglion, fan de' denti succhio," explains the line: "dove solevano già per l' addietro," and remarks that the persons of the present tense of the verb solere were often

Ma non fia da Casal, nè d' Acquasparta,*

Là onde vegnon tali alla scrittura,

Che l'un la fugge, e l' altro la coarta.

Still I affirm that whoever should search through our volume leaf by leaf (i.e. should investigate our Order friar by friar) would yet find some page (i.e. some brother) on which might be read: 'I am what I used

125

used by early Italian writers with the sense of the imperfect: thus Pier delle Vigne (quoted in the Gran Dizionario) says of a woman no longer living :

"Quella ch' io amare e servir soglio;"

and Pacino Angiollieri (in Nannucci's Manuale della Letteratura del Primo Secolo, vol. i, p. 221), after the death of the lady of his love, exclaims:

"Lasso che spessamente il giorno miro

Al loco, ove madonna suol (used to) parere,

Ma non la veggo sì come già soglio [as I was wont to do in times gone by]."

Compare Inf. xvi, 67, 68:—

"Cortesia e valor di' se dimora

Nella nostra città sì come suole?"

* Ma non fia da Casal, nè d' Acquasparta, et seq.: Bonaventura has just said that there are some few faithful friars still left, but, he adds, it is not among the two extreme parties that they will be found, and he names their respective leaders. The former of these, Fra Ubertino da Casale, also called de Italia, was chiefly known as a zealot for the most narrow and strict interpretation of the Rule of St. Francis. He was a disciple of Pier Giovanni Olivi, and on the death of Olivi in 1297, succeeded him as the head of the spirituali. Pietro di Dante says of him : "Composuit libellum vocatum Proloquium de potentia Papae, coarctando scripturam. Dicendo quod ad hoc ut Papa esset, Papa vere debeat habere quae Petrus habuit." Serravalle calls Fra Ubertino "magister in Theologia, valens homo... magnus sillogizator, subtilis sophista." Cardinal Matteo d' Acquasparta was General of the Minor Franciscan Friars, and is notorious for the lax manner in which he administered the discipline of the Order. He was a very prominent figure in Dante's time. In 1297 he was sent by Boniface VIII to Florence, and succeeded in obtaining the assistance of 100 knights to support the pope in his war against the Colonnas. In 1300 the pope sent him back to Florence, during the time that Dante was one of the Priori, to try and bring about a peaceful settlement of the feuds of the Neri and Bianchi.

to be (ie. I [the Franciscan rule] am unaltered).
But it will not be from Casale nor from Acquasparta
whence there come such to the writings (i.e. to the
rule written by St Francis), inasmuch as the one
evades it, and the other narrows it (i.e. makes it
even more stringent).

Division IV.-In Canto x, 91, St. Thomas Aquinas had said to Dante: Tu vuoi saper di quai piante s' infiora questa ghirlanda, and then began to name the blessed spirits, one by one, that were his companions in the innermost garland. Then, in Canto xii, 4, the second, or outer, garland made its appearBonaventura reads Dante's thoughts, and proceeds to gratify his unexpressed wish to know who these last spirits are, by naming first himself, and then his companions of the outermost garland.

It will be noticed that, while these two garlands contain many of their followers, yet St. Francis and St. Dominic are not themselves there. They are placed far up above, among the petals of the Heavenly Rose, though St. Francis alone is mentioned by name (see Par. xxxii, 34-36).

First comes Bonaventura himself, the great schoolman, with whom are named two obscure but holy friars.

Io son la vita di Bonaventura *

Da Bagnoregio, che nei grandi offici
Sempre posposi la sinistra cura.

* Bonaventura: The real name of St. Bonaventura was Giovanni di Fidanza. He was born in 1221 at Bagnorea in Tuscany; he entered the Franciscan Order in 1243 and became General of it in 1256. In 1265 he declined the offer of Clement IV to create him Archbishop of York, but in 1272 was made a

*

Illuminato ed Augustin son quici,

Che fur dei primi scalzi poverelli,

Che nel capestro a Dio si fêro amici.

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I am the soul of Bonaventura of Bagnoregio, who in my high offices always put last the care of the left hand (i.e. I always made the care of temporal affairs secondary to spiritual ones). Here are Illuminato and Agostino, who were among the earliest barefooted poor (i.e. Franciscan friars), who in the (cincture of the) cord made themselves beloved by God. Then follow Hugh of St. Victor, the mystic; Petrus Comestor, the historian; Peter of Spain, the logician; Nathan, the prophet; Chrysostom, the preacher; Anselm, the statesman; Donatus, the grammarian; Rabanus, the theologian; and Joachim, the seer.

Ugo da san Vittore † è qui con elli,

cardinal and Bishop of Albano. He died at Lyons in 1274. Bonaventura was an ardent advocate of the worship of the Virgin Mary. Sixtus IV, himself a Franciscan, pronounced his canonization in 1482, and a hundred years afterwards Sixtus V, by a bull written in 1587, decreed that St. Bonaventura should be placed in the same rank of Saintship as St. Dominic, and be venerated as one of the great masters of theology. Bonaventura is known as the Doctor Seraphicus, a name that seems to mark his place among the great mystic theologians.

*Illuminato da Rieti, and Agostino were two Franciscan friars of great sanctity, but of small reputation otherwise. The former went in the train of St. Francis in his mission to the Holy Land, and the latter became the head of his Order in the Terra di Lavoro.

Ugo da san Vittore: Hugo de St. Victor was a Fleming born at Yprès in 1097. He entered the celebrated monastery of St. Victor at Paris in 1133, and died in 1141. He wrote several works in which he attacked Rationalism, the most important of which are Auditio didascalica; De sacramentis fidei christianae; De laude caritatis, and others. St. Thomas Aquinas considered these to be works of the greatest authority. Richard de St. Victor and Peter Lombard were among the pupils of Hugh.