“La coscienza lucidissima di sè stesso, l’ attitudine all’ analisi psicologica, la febbrile curiosità del mondo esterno, naturale ed umano, lo spirito d’ osservazione, il senso più squisito dell’ arte, la divina serenità, la multiforme impressionabilità dell’ artista, il senso del tenero, la pietà umana, il pessimismo furono note spiccatissime, eminenti del suo genio.”
Vidi ’l maestro di color che sanno Seder tra filosofica famiglia. Tutti lo miran, tutti onor li fanno.
Those who were privileged to listen to Mr. Trevelyan’s lecture on “Italy’s Part in the War,” and to see the wonderful slides presented to him by the _Comando Supremo_, will remember the thrill contributed by the last picture—the great statue of Dante at Trento, with the fugitive Austrian soldiers at its base, fleeing, as it were, before his face. Dante, we felt, has at last come to his own; the Trentino is at last indefeasibly—
and the “alps above Tiralli” effectively “bar out” the Teuton![162]
Dante’s inspiration has indeed brooded over the heroic efforts and struggles of Italy’s twentieth century patriots, even as over their forefathers of the Risorgimento. And this living influence of the Divine Poet’s genius has been brought before our readers in the first two Essays of this collection.
Perhaps it may not be amiss to follow up those former articles with a complementary study of the Poet—no longer as the inspirer of nineteenth and twentieth century ideals, but as the supreme representative of the thought and feeling of his own century, the thirteenth. Like Shakespeare, Dante never grows old. There is a quality of universality about his genius, and a broad and deep human appeal in his writing which renders it the proper heritage of every generation. And, haughty and aloof as was his spirit during life, with an aloofness intensified by bitter exile and by the sickness of ever-deferred hope, he was not one of those great ones who are entirely out of touch with their contemporaries, living in an age not yet born. Scarcely had he passed from mortal sight when a chorus of appreciation made itself heard, which, though it has waned in ages of waning taste, has never ceased to sound.
In a very true sense, Dante sums up in himself all that is best in mediaeval thought.