and Bianchi. The comparison of Dino Compagni with any contemporary annalist in Italy shows that here again, in these pages, a new spirit has arisen. Muratori, proud to print them for the first time in 1726, put them on a level with the 'Commentaries of Cæsar'; Giordani welcomed their author as a second Sallust. The political sagacity and scientific penetration, possessed in so high a degree by the Florentines, appear in full maturity. Compagni's 'Chronicle' heads a long list of similar monographs, unique in the literature of a single city.[2]
[1] The apostrophes to the citizens of Florence at large, and the imprecations on some of the worst offenders among the party-leaders (especially in book ii. on the occasion of the calamities of 1301) are conceived and uttered in the style of Dante.
[2] Among these I may here mention Gino Capponi's history of the Ciompi Rebellion, Giovanni Cavalcanti's memoirs of the period between 1420 and 1452, Leo Battista Alberti's narrative of Porcari's attempt upon the life of Nicholas V., Vespasiano's 'Biographies,' and Poliziano's 'Essay on the Pazzi Conspiracy.' Gino Capponi, born about 1350, was Prior in 1396, and Gonfalonier of Justice in 1401 and 1418; he died in 1421. Giovanni Cavalcanti was a zealous admirer of Cosimo de' Medici; he composed his 'Chronicle' in the prison of the Stinche, where he was unjustly incarcerated for a debt to the Commune of Florence. Vespasiano da Bisticci contributed a series of most valuable portraits to the literature of Italy: all the great men of his time are there delineated with a simplicity that is the sign of absolute sincerity, Poliziano was present at the murder of Giuliano de' Medici in the Florentine Duomo. The historians of the sixteenth century will be noticed together further on.
The arguments against the authenticity of Dino Compagni's 'Chronicle' may be arranged in three groups. The first concerns the man himself. It is urged that, with the exception of his offices as Prior and Gonfalonier, we have no evidence of his political activity, beyond what is furnished by the disputed 'Chronicle.' According to his own account, Dino played a part of the first importance in the complicated events of 1280–1312. Yet he is not mentioned by Giovanni Villani, by Filippo Vallani, or by Dante. There is no record of his death, except a MS. note in the Magliabecchian Codex of his 'Chronicle' of the date 1514.[1] He is known in literature as the author of a few lyrics and an oration to Pope John XXII., the style of which is so rough and mediæval as to make it incredible that the same writer should have composed the masterly paragraphs of the 'Chronicle.'[2] The second group of arguments affects the substance of the 'Chronicle' itself. Though Dino was Prior when Charles of Valois entered Florence, he records that event under the date of Sunday the fourth of November, whereas Charles arrived on the first of November, and the first Sunday of the month was the fifth. He differs from the concurrent testimony of other historians in making the affianced bride of Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti a Giantruffetti instead of an Amidei, and the Bishop of Arezzo a Pazzi instead of an Ubertini. He reckons the Arti at twenty-four, whereas they numbered twenty-one. He places the Coronation of Henry VII. in August, instead of in June, 1312. He seems to refer to the Palace of the Signory, which could not have been built at the date in question. He asserts that a member of the Benivieni family was killed by one of the Galligai, whereas the murderer was of the blood of the Galli. He represents himself as having been the first Gonfalonier of Justice who destroyed the houses of rebellious nobles, while Baldo de' Ruffoli, who held the office before him, had previously carried out the Ordinances. Speaking of Guido Cavalcanti about the year 1300, he calls him 'uno giovane gentile'; and yet Guido had married the daughter of Farinata degli Uberti in 1266, and certainly did not survive 1300 more than a few months. The peace with Pisa, which was concluded during Compagni's tenure of the Gonfalonierate, is not mentioned, though this must have been one of the most important public events with which he was concerned. Chronology is hopelessly and inextricably confused; while inaccuracies and difficulties of the kind described abound on every page of the 'Chronicle,' rendering the labor of its last commentator and defender one of no small difficulty. The third group of arguments assails the language of the 'Chronicle' and its MS. authority. Fanfani, who showed more zeal than courtesy in his destructive criticism, undertook to prove that Dino's style in general is not distinguished for the 'purity, simplicity, and propriety' of the trecento[3]; that it abounds in expressions of a later period, such as armata for oste, marciare for andare, acciò for acciocchè, onde for affinchè; that numerous imitations of Dante can be traced in it; and that to an acute student of early Italian prose its palpable quattrocentismo is only slightly veiled by a persistent affectation of fourteenth-century archaism. This argument from style seems the strongest that can be brought against the genuineness of the 'Chronicle'; for while it is possible that Dino may have made innumerable blunders about the events in which he took a part, it is incredible that he should have anticipated the growth of Italian by at least a century. Yet judges no less competent than Fanfani in this matter of style, and far more trustworthy as witnesses, Vincenzo Nannucci, Gino Capponi, Isidoro del Lungo, are of opinion that Dino's 'Chronicle' is a masterpiece of Italian fourteenth-century prose; and till Italian experts are agreed, foreign critics must suspend their judgment. The analysis of style receives a different development from Scheffer-Boichorst. In his last essay he undertakes to show that many passages of the 'Chronicle,' especially the important one which refers to the Ordinamenti della Giustizia, have been borrowed from Villani.[4] This critical weapon is difficult to handle, for it almost always cuts both ways. Yet the German historian has made out an undoubtedly good case by proving Villani's language closer to the original Ordinamenti than Compagni's. With regard to MS. authority, the codices of Dino's 'Chronicle' extant in Italy are all of them derived from a MS. transcribed by Noferi Busini and given by him to Giovanni Mazzuoli, surnamed Lo Stradino, who was a member of the Florentine Academy and a greedy collector of antiquities. This MS. bears the date 1514. The recent origin of this parent codex, and the questionable character of Lo Stradino, gave rise to not unreasonable suspicions. Fanfani roundly asserted that the 'Chronicle' must have been fabricated as a hoax upon the uncritical antiquary, since it suddenly appeared without a pedigree, at a moment when such forgeries were not uncommon. Scheffer-Boichorst, in his most recent pamphlet, committed himself to the opinion that either Lo Stradino himself, nicknamed Cronaca Scorretta by his Florentine cronies, or one of his contemporaries, was the forger.[5] An Italian impugner of the 'Chronicle,' Giusto Grion of Verona, declared for Antonfrancesco Doni as the fabricator.[6] These hypotheses, however, are, to say the least, unlucky for their suggestors, and really serve to weaken rather than to strengthen the destructive line of argument. There exists an elder codex of which Fanfani and his followers were ignorant. It is a MS. of perhaps the middle of the fifteenth century, which was purchased for the Ashburnham Library in 1846. This MS. has been minutely described by Professor Paul Meyer; and Isidoro del Lungo publishes a fac-simile specimen of one of its pages.[7] By some unaccountable negligence this latest and most determined defender of Compagni has failed to examine the MS. with his own eyes.
[1] This is Isidoro del Lungo's Codex A. The note occurs also in the Ashburnham MS. which Del Lungo refers to the fifteenth century.
[2] On this point it is worth mentioning that some good critics refer the poems to an elder Dino Compagni, who sat as Ancient in 1251. See the discussion of this question, as also of the authorship of the Intelligenza, claimed by Isidoro del Lungo for the writer of the 'Chronicle,' in Borgognini's Essays (Scritti Vari, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1877, vol. i.). With regard to the oration to Pope John XXII. date 1326, it must be noted that this performance was first printed by Anton