Historical Background of Dante 85
Thus was Dante’s public career blasted and the whole
course of his life changed by the chance which brought his
unbending character in opposition to the tortuous policy of
the papacy wielded by the overweening Boniface. Yet,
though for the next twenty years Dante was to “prove how
salt the taste is of another’s bread, and how hard a path
it is to go up and down another’s stairs,’’ posterity cannot
regard his exile as an unmixed evil. For who shall say, had
Dante been left to pursue the life he*was leading, possibly
becoming more than ever involved in public affairs, certainly
with a totally different experience of life than that which
he actually had, that the “Divine Comedy” would ever have
seen the light of day, at least in anything like the form it
actually has.
Of the details of Dante’s movements during the twenty-
odd years of his exile not much is known. That he was
pretty constantly on the move is clear, rarely staying more
than a year or two consecutively at any one place. Mostly
he spent his time in northern Italy, often quite close to
Florence. Once only did he leave Italy, when apparently
he made a short trip to France, studying for a while at
Paris. But of the exact time of this trip and its details
nothing is known. Of the general conditions under which
this period of his life was spent Dante himself has given
us a short sketch than which no better can be given.
In a passage at the beginning of the “Convivio” he says:
Alas, would it had pleased the Dispenser of the Universe that I
should never have had to make excuses for myself ; that neither others
had sinned against me, nor I had suffered this punishment unjustly,
the punishment I say of exile and poverty ! Since it was the pleasure
of the citizens of the fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome,
Florence, to cast me out from her most sweet bosom (wherein I was
born and brought up to the climax of my life, and wherein I long
with all my heart, with their good leave, to repose my wearied spirit,