After making Dante's marriage an excuse for revamping all the old
slanders against matrimony, he adds gravely, "Certainly I do not
affirm these things to have happened to Dante, for I do not know it,
though it be true that (whether things like these or others were the
cause of it), once parted from her, he would never come where she was
nor suffer her to come where he was, for all that she was the mother
of several children by him." That he did not come to her is not
wonderful, for he would have been burned alive if he had. Dante could
not send for her because he was a homeless wanderer. She remained in
Florence with her children because she had powerful relations and
perhaps property there. It is plain, also, that what Boccaccio says
of Dante's _lussuria_ had no better foundation. It gave him a chance
to turn a period. He gives no particulars, and his general statement
is simply incredible. Lionardo Bruni and Vellutello long ago pointed
out the trifling and fictitious character of this "Life." Those
familiar with Dante's allegorical diction will not lay much stress on
the literal meaning of _pargoletta_ in Purgatono, XXXI. 59. Gentucca,
of course, was a real person, one of those who had shown hospitality
to the exile.
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