This passage, so worthy of preservation and of literal translation, is given by Signor Tamburini as follows:  “The tiara is the first of honors, but also the first and heaviest of burdens, and the most rigorous slavery; it is the greatest risk of misfortune and of shame.  The Papal mantle is pierced with sharp thorns; who, then, will excuse him who frets himself for it?”

But it is not only in passages relating to the Church that the translator’s faithlessness is displayed.  Almost every page of his work exhibits some omission, addition, transposition, or paraphrase, for which no explanation can be given, and not even an insufficient excuse be offered.  In Canto IX. of the “Paradise,” Dante puts into the mouth of Cunizza, speaking of Foulques of Marseilles, the words, “Before his fame shall die, the hundredth year shall five times come around.”  “And note here,” says Benvenuto, “that our author manifestly tells a falsehood; since of that man there is no longer any fame, even in his own country.  I say, in brief, that the author wishes tacitly to hint that he will give fame to him by his power,—­a fame that shall not die so long as this book shall live; and if we may conjecture of the future, it is to last for many ages, since we see that the fame of our author continually increases.  And thus he exhorts men to live virtuously, that the wise may bestow fame upon them, as he himself has now given it to Cunizza, and will give it to Foulques.”  Not a word of this appears in Signor Tamburini’s pages, interesting as it is as an early expression of confidence in the duration of Dante’s fame.

A similar omission of a curious reference to Dante occurs in the comment on the 23d verse of Canto XXVII. of the “Inferno,” where Benvenuto, speaking of the power of mental engrossment or moral affections to overcome physical pain, says, “As I, indeed, have seen a sick man cause the poem of Dante to be brought to him for relief from the burning pains of fever.”

Such omissions as these deprive Benvenuto’s pages of the charm of naivete, and of the simple expression of personal experience and feeling with which they abound in the original, and take from them a great part of their interest for the general reader.  But there is another class of omissions and alterations which deprives the translation of value for the special student of the text of Dante,—­a class embracing many of Benvenuto’s discussions of disputed readings and remarks upon verbal forms.  Signor Tamburini has thus succeeded in making his book of no use as an authority, and prevented it from being referred to by any one desirous of learning Benvenuto’s judgment in any case of difficulty.  To point out in detail instances of this kind is not necessary, after what we have already done.