The
_Ottimo Comento_ tells us that the Twins are the house of Mercury, who
induces in men the faculty of writing, science, and of acquiring
knowledge. This is worth mentioning as characteristic of the age and of
Dante himself, with whom the influence of the stars took the place of the
old notion of destiny.[11] It is supposed, from a passage in Boccaccio's
life of Dante, that Alighiero the father was still living when the poet
was nine years old. If so, he must have died soon after, for Leonardo
Aretino, who wrote with original documents before him, tells us that
Dante lost his father while yet a child. This circumstance may have been
not without influence in muscularizing his nature to that character of
self-reliance which shows itself so constantly and sharply during his
after-life. His tutor was Brunetto Latini, a very superior man (for that
age), says Aretino parenthetically. Like Alexander Gill, he is now
remembered only as the schoolmaster of a great poet, and that he did his
duty well may be inferred from Dante's speaking of him gratefully as one
who by times "taught him how man eternizes himself." This, and what
Villani says of his refining the Tuscan idiom (for so we understand his
_farli scorti in bene parlare_),[12] are to be noted as of probable
influence on the career of his pupil.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25