BENVENUTO.

Judicio meo mihi videtur quod quatuor deduxerunt eam nobilem provinciam ad tantam desolationem.  Primum est avaritia Pastorum Ecclesiae, qui nunc vendunt unam terram, nunc aliam; et nunc unus favet uni Tyranno, nunc alius alteri, secundum quod saepe mutantur officiales.  Secundum est pravitas Tyrannorum suorum, qui semper inter se se lacerant et rodunt, et subditos excoriant.  Tertium est fertilitas locorum ipsius provinciae, cujus pinguedo allicit barbaros et externos in praedam.  Quartum est invidia, quae viget in cordibus ipsorum incolarum.

TAMBURINI.

Per me ritengo, che quattro fossero le cagioni per cui la Romagna si ridusse a tanta desolazione:  l’ abuso per avarizia di alcuni ecclesiastici, che alienarono or una, or un’ altra terra, e si misero d’ accordo coi tiranni,—­i tiranni stessi che sempre erano discordi fra loro a danno de’ sudditi,—­la fertilita de’ terreni, che troppo alletta gli strani, ed i barbari,—­l’ invidia, che regna fra gli stessi roma gnuoli.

“In my judgment,” says Benvenuto, who speaks with the authority of long experience and personal observation, “it seems to me that four things have brought that noble province to so great desolation.  The first of which is, the avarice of the Pastors of the Church, who now sell one tract of its land, and now another; while one favors one Tyrant, and another another, so that the men in authority are often changed.  The second is, the wickedness of the Tyrants themselves, who are always tearing and biting each other, and fleecing their subjects.  The third is, the fertility of the province itself, which by its very richness allures barbarians and foreigners to prey upon it.  The fourth is, that spirit of jealousy which flourishes in the hearts of the inhabitants themselves.”  It will be noticed that the translator changes the phrase, “the avarice of the Pastors of the Church,” into “the avarice of some ecclesiastics,” while throughout the passage, as indeed throughout every page of the work, the vigor of Benvenuto’s style and the point of his animated sentences are quite lost in the flatness of a dull and inaccurate paraphrase.

A passage in which the spirit of the poet has fully roused his manly commentator is the noble burst of indignant reproach with which he inveighs against and mourns over Italy in Canto VI. of the “Purgatory":—­

  Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello,
  Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta,
  Non donna di provincie, ma bordello.

“Nota metaphoram pulcram:  sicut enim in lupanari venditur caro humana pretio sine pudore, ita meretrix magna, idest Curia Romana, et Curia Imperialis, vendunt libertatem Italicam....  Ad Italiam concurrunt omnes barbarae nationes cum aviditate ad ipsam conculcandam....  Et heic, Lector, me excusabis, qui antequam ulterius procedam, cogor facere invectivam contra Dantem.  O utinam, Poeta mirifice, rivivisceres modo!  Ubi pax, ubi tranquillitas in Italia?...  Nunc autem dicere possim de tola Italia quod Vergilius tuus de una Urbe dixit: