Tiraboschi also mentions him, Storia della Lett., IV. 397 : "He was seen by Dante in Purgatory punished among the Gluttons, from which vice, it is proper to say, poetry did not render him exempt."
"Gaudent anguillae, quod mortuus hic jacet ille
Qui quasi morte reas excoriabat eas."
"Martin the Fourth," says Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ., VI. 143, "was born at Mont. Pencè in Brie; he had been Canon of Tours. He put on at first the show of maintaining the lofty character of the Churchman. He excommunicated the Viterbans for their sacrilegious maltreatment of the Cardinals; Rinaldo Annibaldeschi, the Lord of Viterbo, was compelled to ask pardon on his knees of the Cardinal Rosso, and forgiven only at the intervention of the Pope. Martin the Fourth retired to Orvieto.
"But the Frenchman soon began to predominate over the Pontiff; he sunk into the vassal of Charles of Anjou. The great policy of his predecessor, to assuage the feuds of Guelph and Ghibelline, was an Italian policy ; it was altogether abandoned. The Ghibellines in every city were menaced or smitten with excommunication; the Lambertazzi were driven from Bologna. Forl&i grave; was placed under interdict for harbouring the exiles; the goods of the citizens were confiscated for the benefit of the Pope. Bertoldo Orsini was deposed from the Countship of Romagna; the office was bestowed on John of Appia, with instructions everywhere to coerce or to chastise the refractory Ghibellines."
Villani, Book VI. Ch 106, says:
"He was a good man, and very favourable to Holy Church and to those of the house of France, because he was from Tours." He is said to have died of a surfeit. The eels and sturgeon of Bolsena, and the wines of Orvieto arid Montefiascone, in the neighbourhood of whose vineyards he lived, were too much for him. But he died in Perugia, not in Orvieto.
"Its circular form, and being in the centre of a volcanic district, has led to its being regarded as an extinct crater; but that hypothesis can scarcely be admitted when the great extent of the lake is considered. The treacherous beauty of the lake conceals malaria in its most fatal forms ; and its shores, although there are no traces of a marsh, are deserted, excepting where a few sickly hamlets are scattered on their western slopes. The ground is cultivated in many parts down to the water's edge, but the labourers dare not sleep for a single night during the summer or autumn on the plains where they work by day; and a large tract of beautiful and productive country is reduced to a perfect solitude by this invisible calamity. Nothing can be more striking than the appearance of the lake, without a single sail upon its waters, and with scarcely a human habitation within sight of Bolsena; and nothing perhaps can give the traveller who visits Italy for the first time a more impressive idea of the effects of malaria."
Of the Vernaccia or Vernage, in which Pope Martin cooked his eels, Henderson says, Hist. Anc. and Mod. Wines, p. 296 :
"The Vernage . . . . was a red wine, of a bright colour, and a sweetish and somewhat rough flavour, which was grown in Tuscany and other parts of Italy, and derived its name from the thick-skinned grape, vernaccia (corresponding with the vinaciola of the ancients), that was used in the preparation of it."
Chaucer mentions it in the Merchant's Tale:
"He drinketh ipocras, clarre, and vernage
Of spices hot, to encreasen his corege."
And Redi, Bacchus in Tuscany Leigh Hunt's Tr.", p. 30, sings of it thus:--
If anybody doesn't like Vernaccia,
I mean that sort that's made in Pietrfitta,
Let him fly
My vioicnt eye:
I curse hin, clean, through all the Alphabeta."
"Deludes his throat with visionary fare,
Feasts on the wind and banquets on the air."
Some writers say that this Boniface, Archbishop of Ravenna, was a son of Ubaldino; but this is confounding him with Ruggieri, Archbishop of Pisa. He was of the Fieschi of Genoa. His pasturing many people alludes to his keeping a great retinue and court, and the free life they led in matters of the table.
Benvenuto and the Ottimo interpret the passage differently, making gentucca a common noun, --gente bassa, low people. But the passage which immediately follows, in which a maiden is mentioned who should make Lucca pleasant to him, seems to confirm the former interpretation.
But even like as doth a skrivenere,
That can no more tell what that he shal write,
But as his maister beside dothe indite."
"Ladies that have intelligence in love,
Of mine own lady I would speak with you;
Not that I hope to count her praises through,
But, telling what I may, to ease my mind."
"OF HIS LADY IN HEAVEN.
"Ihave it in my heart to serve God so
That into Paradise I shall repair,--
The holy place through the which everywhere
I have heard say that joy and solace flow.
Without my, lady I were loath to go,--
She who has the bright face and the bright
hair;
Because if she were absent, I being there,
My pleasure would be less than nought, I
know.
Look you, I say not this to such intent
As that I there would deal in any sin:
only would behold her gracious mien,
And beautiful soft eyes, and lovely face,
That so it should be my complete content
To see my lady joyful in her place."
Fra Guittone d' Arezzo, a contemporary of the Notary, was one of the Frati Gaudenti, or Jovial Friars, mentioned in Inf . XXIII. Note 103. He first brought the Italian Sonnet to the perfect form it has since preserved, and gentle in manners as in blood; of a fine figure even in his old age, with a beautiful countenance, delicate features, and a fair complexion; pleasing, wise; and an eloquent speaker. His attention was ever fixed on important things; he was intimate with all the great and noble, had an extensive influence, and was famous throughout Italy. He was an enemy of the middle classes and their supporters, beloved by the troops, but full of malicious thoughts, wicked, and artful. He was thus basely murdered by a foreign soldier, and his fellow-citizens well knew the man, for he was instantly conveyed away: those who ordered his death were Rosso della Tosa and Pazzino de' Pazzi, as is commonly said by all; and some bless him and some the contrary. Many believe that the two said knights killed him, and I, wishing to ascertain the truth, inquired diligently, and found what I have said to be true. Such is the character of Corso Donati, which has come down to us from two authors who must have been personally acquainted with this distinguished chief, but opposed to each other in the general politics of their country."
See also Inf. VI. Note 52.
*Dino Compagni, 111.76.
"For one, most brutal of the brutal brood,
Or whether wine or beauty fired his blood,
Or both at once, beheld with lustful eyes
The bride; at once resolved to make his prize.
Down went the board; and fastening on her hair.
He seized with sudden force the frighted fair.
'Twas Eurytus began: his bestial kind
His crime pursued; and each, as pleased his
mind,
Or her whom chance presented, took: the feast
An image of a taken town expressed.
"The cave resounds with female shrieks; we rise
Mad with revenge, to make a swift reprise:
And Theseus first, 'What frenzy has possessed,
O Eurytus,' he cried, 'thy brutal breast,
To wrong Pirithous, and not him alone,
But, while I live, two friends conjoined in one?'"