It is surprising that with such a vast and difficult work as the 'Divine Comedy' engaging him, Dante should have found time and strength during his exile for the writing of treatises in prose so considerable as that on the Common Tongue, and the much longer and more important book which he called 'Il Convivio' or 'Il Convito' (The Banquet). It is apparent from various references in the course of the work that it was at least mainly written between 1307 and 1310. Its design was of large scope. It was to be composed of fifteen parts or treatises; but of these only four were completed, and such is their character both as regards their exhibition of the poet's nature and their exposition of the multifarious topics of philosophy, of science, and of morals treated in them, that the student of Dante and of mediæval thought cannot but feel a deep regret at the failure of the poet to carry his undertaking to its intended close. But though the work is imperfect as a whole, each of its four parts is complete and practically independent in itself.
Dante's object in the book was twofold. His opening words are a translation of what Matthew Arnold calls "that buoyant and immortal sentence with which Aristotle begins his Metaphysics,"--"All mankind naturally desire knowledge." But few can attain to what is desired by all, and innumerable are they who live always famished for want of this food. "Oh, blessed are the few who sit at that table where the bread of the angels is eaten, and wretched they who have food in common with the herds." "I, therefore, who do not sit at the blessed table, but having fled from the pasture of the crowd, gather up at the feet of those who sit at it what falls from them, and through the sweetness I taste in that which little by little I pick up, know the wretched life of those whom I have left behind me, and moved with pity for them, not forgetting myself, have reserved something for these wretched ones." These crumbs were the substance of the banquet which he proposed to spread for them. It was to have fourteen courses, and each of these courses was to have for its principal viand a canzone of which the subject should be Love and Virtue, and the bread served with each course was to be the exposition of these poems,--poems which for want of this exposition lay under the shadow of obscurity, so that by many their beauty was more esteemed than their goodness. They were in appearance mere poems of love, but under this aspect they concealed their true meaning, for the lady of his love was none other than Philosophy herself, and not sensual passion but virtue was their moving cause. The fear of reproach to which this misinterpretation might give occasion, and the desire to impart teaching which others could not give, were the two motives of his work.