⁂ To the Bibliographical Appendix should be added: A. Fiammazzo, _Il commento dantesco di Graziolo de’ Bambaglioli_ (Savona, 1915), and P. Revelli, _L’Italia nella Divina Commedia_ (Milan, 1923). CONTENTS CHAPTER I DANTE IN HIS TIMES-- I. The End of the Middle Ages.--II. Dante’s Childhood and Adolescence.--III. After the Death of Beatrice.--IV. Dante’s Political Life.--V. First Period of Exile.--VI. The Invasion of Henry VII.--VII. Last Period of Exile.--VIII. Dante’s Works and First Interpreters 1 CHAPTER II DANTE’S MINOR ITALIAN WORKS-- I. _The Vita Nuova._--II. _The Rime._--III. _The Convivio_ 67 CHAPTER III DANTE’S LATIN WORKS-- I. The _De Vulgari Eloquentia_.--II. _The Monarchia._--III. _The Epistolae._--IV. _The Eclogae._--V. The _Quaestio de Aqua et Terra_ 102 CHAPTER IV THE “DIVINA COMMEDIA”-- I. Introductory.--II. The _Inferno_.--III. The _Purgatorio_.--IV. The _Paradiso_ 136 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 223 DIAGRAMS AND TABLES 233 INDEX 249 DANTE CHAPTER I DANTE IN HIS TIMES 1. _The End of the Middle Ages_ FROM GREGORY VII. TO FREDERICK II.--The twelfth and thirteenth centuries cover the last and more familiar portion of the Middle Ages. They are the period of chivalry, of the crusades and of romance, when the Neo-Latin languages bore fruit in the prose and poetry of France, the lyrics of the Provençal troubadours, and the earliest vernacular literature of Italy; the period which saw the development of Gothic architecture, the rise of scholastic philosophy, the institution of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, the recovery by western Europe of the works of Aristotle, the elevation of Catholic theology into a systematic harmony of reason and revelation under the influence of the christianised Aristotelianism of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. The vernacular literature of Italy developed comparatively late, and (until the time of Aquinas and Bonaventura) her part in the scholastic movement was secondary to that of France, but she had led the way in the revival of the study of Roman law and jurisprudence, which centred at Bologna, where the great Irnerius taught at the beginning of the twelfth century. It was thus that the first European university, _studium generale_, came into being, and Bologna boasts the proud title _alma mater studiorum_.