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pursuit, perceiving that although philosophy surpasses all things else in nobility, yet her excellence can be communicated only to the few, and those who win fame thereby in the world are many; whereas poetry is less abstruse and more pleasing to every one, and poets are exceeding few. Therefore, hoping by her means to attain to the unusual and glorious honour of the laurel crown, he devoted himself wholly to the study and composition of poetry. And of a surety his desire would have been fulfilled had Fortune favoured him so far as to allow him ever to return to Florence, where alone at the font of San Giovanni, he was willing to receive the crown; to the end that in the same place where he had received his first name in baptism, there too he might receive the second by being crowned. But it so came about that although his sufficiency was great, and such that wherever he had chosen he might have received the laurel, yet, in expectation of that return which was destined never to take place, hewould not consent to accept it anywhere else than in Florence; and so he died without the much coveted honour. . . .
    Â Â Â Â  “Our poet, further, was of a very lofty and scornful disposition, insomuch that when a certain friend of his, in answer to his entreaties to that effect, sought to bring about his return to Florence, which he most ardently longed for above all things else, and could find no other way with those who then had the government of the Republic in their hands, save this one only : that he should be kept in prison for a certain space, and afterwards on some solemn public occasion should be presented, as an act of mercy, in our principal church, being thereby restored to liberty and released from every sentence previously passed upon him—such a thing, in his opinion, being fitting to be practised only in the case of abject and infamous men and of no others, he, notwithstanding his great longing, chose rather to remain in exile than by such means to return to his home.
    Â Â Â Â  “Likewise Dante thought no little of himself, rating his own worth no less highly, according to the reports of his contemporaries, than was his actual due. Which thing was apparent on one occasion among others to a remarkable degree at the time when he and his party were at the head of affairs in the Republic; for, inasmuch as those who were out of power had, through the mediation of Pope Boniface VIII, invited a brother or relation of Philip, the then King of France, whose name was Charles, to come and set to rights the affairs of our city, all the chiefs of the party with which Dante was allied, met together in council to make provision concerning this matter; and there among other things they resolved to send an embassy to the Pope, who was then at Rome, in order to induce the Pope to oppose the coming of thesaid Charles, or to arrange for him to come in agreement with the said party which was in power. And when it came to be debated who should be at the head of the proposed embassy, it was agreed by all that it should be Dante. To which request Dante, after a brief hesitation, said: ‘If I go, who remains? If I remain, who goes?’ 2 As though he alone of them all was of any consequence, or gave any consequence to the rest. This saying was understood and taken note of.
    Â Â Â Â  “But, apart from all this, this worthy man in all his adversities showed the greatest fortitude. Only in one thing he was, I know not whether I should say impatient or passionate, namely, he was more given to faction after his exile than was becoming to a man of his parts, and more than he would have had it believed of him by others. And what I most blush for on account of his memory is that in Romagna it is perfectly notorious to every one that any feeble woman or little child who had spoken on party matters, and found fault with the Ghibelline party to which he belonged, would have stirred him to such a pitch of madness