mean from the fountain of universal authority.” Yet it must not be taken that the Roman Prince is not subordinate in anything to the Roman Pontiff, since this mortal felicity is in some sort ordained with reference to immortal felicity. “Let Caesar, therefore, observe that reverence to Peter which a firstborn son should observe to a father, so that, illuminated by the light of paternal grace, he may with greater power irradiate the world, over which he is set by Him alone who is ruler of all things spiritual and temporal” (_Mon._ iii. 16). RECEPTION OF THE WORK.--The _Monarchia_ remained almost unknown until the great conflict between Louis of Bavaria and Pope John XXII., after Dante’s death. Boccaccio tells us that the Imperialists used arguments from the book in support of their claims, and it became in consequence very famous. A tempest of clerical indignation roared round it. A Dominican friar, Guido Vernani, wrote a virulent but occasionally acute treatise, “on the power of the Supreme Pontiff and in confutation of the _Monarchy_ composed by Dante Alighieri,” which he dedicated as a warning to Ser Graziolo de’ Bambaglioli, chancellor of Bologna, Dante’s commentator and apologist. The notorious Cardinal Bertrando del Poggetto, who had been sent as papal legate to Italy by John XXII., had the _Monarchia_ burnt as heretical, and followed this up--apparently in 1329--by an infamous attempt to desecrate Dante’s tomb. In the sixteenth century it was placed upon the Index of Prohibited Books. Dante had anticipated this, and the splendid passage which opens the third book of the _Monarchia_ strikes the keynote, not only of this treatise, but of all his life-work for what he conceived the service of God and the welfare of man: “Since the truth about it cannot be laid bare without putting certain to the blush, perchance it will be the cause of some indignation against me. But since Truth from her immutable throne demands it, and Solomon, too, as he enters the forest of the Proverbs, teaches us by his own example to meditate upon the truth and abjure the impious man, and the Philosopher, teacher of morals, urges us to sacrifice friendship for truth, therefore I take courage from the words of Daniel, wherein the divine power, the shield of such as defend the truth, is proffered; and, putting on the breastplate of faith, according to the admonition of Paul, in the warmth of that coal which one of the Seraphim took from the celestial altar and touched the lips of Isaiah withal, I will enter upon the present wrestling-ground, and, by the arm of Him who delivered us from the power of darkness by His blood, will I hurl the impious and the liar out of the ring in the sight of all the world. What should I fear, since the Spirit, coeternal with the Father and with the Son, says by the mouth of David: ‘The just shall be had in everlasting remembrance; he shall not be afraid of an evil report’?” 3. _The “Epistolae”_