“Dante formerly had been used to spend his time over his precious studies whenever he was inclined, and would converse with kings and princes, dispute with philosophers, and frequent the company of poets.... Now, whenever it pleased his new mistress he must at her bidding quit this distinguished company, and bear with the talk of women, and to avoid a worse vexation must not only assent to their opinions, but against his inclination must even approve them. He who, whenever the presence of the vulgar herd annoyed him, had been accustomed to retire to some solitary spot, and there to speculate on the motions of the heavens, or the source of animal life, or the beginnings of created things, or may be to indulge some strange fancy, or to compose somewhat which after his death should make his name live into future ages, he now, as often as the whim took his new mistress, must abandon all such sweet contemplation, and go in company with those who had little mind for such things.”[80] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [80] Boccaccio’s _Vita di Dante_; Translation from Toynbee’s _Dante Alighieri_ (Oxford Biographies), pp. 92, 93. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ However, after a long tirade against wives, Boccaccio owns that as far as concerns Dante the picture is entirely imaginary. He believes the marriage was an unhappy one, because after his exile Dante and his wife never met again, but we have no evidence whatever that while they were together their life was as Boccaccio depicts it. Doubtless family life and the care of four children interfered to some extent with Dante’s studies, but the one detail Boccaccio affirms as fact among his fancies, namely that the poet refused for nineteen years to see his wife, seems rather to imply that one thing poor Gemma did know how to do was to leave her husband in peace when he did not desire her company. When and where Dante began to study astronomy seriously it is not easy to say. His favourite study in his youth was poetry, but his parents (says Bruni) gave him a good general education, engaging such teachers as could be found in Florence, where as yet there was no university. But seeing how clever the boy was, his relatives and friends helped and encouraged him, and among the latter Bruni mentions Brunetto Latini.