Toynbee "Sordello"

As D. and Virgil are on their way through AntePurgatory, after they have parted from Pierre de la Brosse, they come upon a spirit (that of Sordello), standing all alone, haughty and disdainful, and of dignified mien, of whom V. proposes to ask the way ([Purg. vi. 58-63]); as they approach, S. takes no heed of them until V. prays him to tell them the quickest way to the ascent ([Purg. vi. 64-68]); instead of replying to V.'s demands, S. inquires whence they come and who they are ([Purg. vi. 69-71]); V. is about to answer, and has scarce uttered the word 'Mantua' when S. springs towards him and names himself as Sordello of that place, whereupon the two poets embrace ([Purg. vi. 72-75]); D. then breaks out into an apostrophe to Italy inveighing against the party strife by which the country is torn, and against the emperor's neglect, and the perverseness of his own city of Florence ([Purg. vi. 76-151]). V. and S. having exchanged greetings, V. at S.'s request makes himself known and informs S. of his condition ([Purg. vii. 1-9]); S., on learning who V. is, humbly embraces him and hegs to be told whether he has come from Hell, and if so from what part ([Purg. vii. 10-21]); V. explains that he has come from Limbo ([Purg. vii. 22-36]), and then asks S. to direct them on the nearest road to the Gate of Purgatory ([Purg. vii. 37-39]); S. thereupon offers himself as their guide and, explaining that, as it is close upon nightfall and they cannot ascend in the dark, they must find some place to halt in, suggests that they should accompany him to where certain spirits are congregated, whose acquaintance they would be glad to make ([Purg. vii. 40-48]); V. having acquiesced, S. leads them to a small valley in the mountainside, bright with flowers and grass, where he points out to them many kings and princes, who through pressure of temporal affairs had deferred their repentance, among them being the Emperor Rudolf, Ottokar of Bohemia, Philip III of France, Henry I of Navarre, Pedro III of Aragon, Charles I of Anjou, Alfonso III of Aragon, Henry III of England, and William of Montferrat ([Purg. vii. 49-136]). The night now falls, and after the spirits have prayed together two angels descend from on high and keep guard over them ([Purg. viii. 1-36]); S. having explained the reason of the angels' coming, the three poets go down among the spirits, where D. sees Nino Visconti of Pisa and Currado Malaspina, with the former of whom he converses ([Purg. viii. 37-84]); presently, while D. is watching the sky and V. is explaining to him the stars he sees, S. draws their attention to a serpent making its way towards them ([Purg. viii. 85-102]); after the latter has been driven back by the angels, D. converses with Currado Malaspina ([Purg. viii. 103-139]). Before long, as the three poets and their two companions are seated on the grass, D. falls asleep, and while unconscious is borne by Lucy to the Gate of Purgatory, Sordello being left behind with Nino Visconti and Currado Malaspina ([Purg. ix. 1-63]).

Comparatively little is known with any certainty of Sordello's life; he appears to have been in Florence about the year 1220, and shortly after he was in Verona, at the court of Count Ricciardo di San Bonifazio who had married (in 1221 or 1222) Cunizza, daughter of Ezzelino II da Romano ([Par. ix. 32]). In or about 1226 Sordello, at the bidding, it is said for political reasons, of her brother Ezzelino III, abducted Cunizza from Verona and took her to Ezzelino's court [Cunizza]. Not long after this he went to a castle at Ceneda (some 15 miles N. of Treviso), belonging to the Strasso family, with whom he was on intimate terms; while under their roof he secretly married Otta, a lady of the family, and fled with her to Treviso, where (between 1227 and 1229) he placed himself under the protection of Ezzelino, never stirring abroad without an armed escort for fear of the vengeance of Count Ricciardo di San Bonifazio and of the Strasso family. During his stay at Treviso it appears that Sordello once more entered into relations with Cunizza, and formed a liaison with her, thereby incurring the resentment of her brother Ezzelino, on which account he was forced hurriedly to leave Treviso, and betook himself to Provence. From here after a brief stay he passed into Spain, where he spent two or three years (between 1230 and 1232) at the courts of Alfonso IX of Leon, Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon, and James I of Aragon (to whom one of his poems is dedicated); thence he went to Poitou to the court of Savaric de Mauleon (d. 1233). About this time he may have made a journey into Portugal, after which he made a lengthened stay in Provence. To the year 1237 or thereabouts belongs one of Sordello's most important poems, his lament for the death of Blacatz, one of the Provencal barons of Count Raymond Berenger IV. In the summer of 1241 he was with the latter at Montpellier, when Romieu of Villeneuve, Berenger's seneschal, with whom Sordello was acquainted, was also present, on the occasion of the conference between the count, James I of Aragon, and Raymond VII of Toulouse, as to the projected marriage of this last with the count's daughter Sancia (who eventually married Richard of Cornwall). When, shortly after the death of Count Raymond Berenger his youngest daughter Beatrice married (Jan. 1246) Charles of Anjou, who thus became lord of Provence, Sordello addressed a poem of welcome to him, urging him while yet in the prime of youth to address himself to noble deeds. In 1248 Charles joined the crusade undertaken by his brother Louis IX, and invited Sordello to follow him, an invitation which Sordello declined in a second poem.

Charles remained overseas for two years, and in the spring of 1251 was again in Provence. In the next year Sordello appears at Aix as one of the witnesses at the signature of a treaty of peace between Charles and the rebellious city of Marseilles (July 26, 1252). During the absence of Charles in Flanders from 1253 to 1257 Sordello remained in Provence, and on the count's return he again figures as witness to a treaty (signed at Aix, June 6, 1257) between Charles and the city of Marseilles, which had rebelled a second time. During the next eight or nine years Sordello remained at Charles's court in Provence. When the latter in the spring of 1265 set out on his expedition to Italy to take possession of the kingdom of Sicily, Sordello followed him, accompanying the troops which went by land while Charles went by sea. Sordello's presence in Italy is attested by a brief of Clement IV addressed to Charles (Sept. 22, 1266), in which the pope refers to the fact that Sordello was in prison at Novara, and urges Charles to procure his release, on the ground of his past services to him ('languet Novariae miles tuus Sordellus qui emendus esset immeritus, nedum pro meritis redimendus') -- an application which has been taken to indicate that Sordello had been present on the occasion of Charles's crushing defeat of Manfred at the Battle of Benevento in the previous February. In any case Sordello was among those who shared in the distribution of Apulian fiefs made by Charles to his Proven¿ barons after his victories over the Hohenstaufen at Benevento and Tagliacozzo, to Sordello and his heirs being assigned several castles in the Abruzzi, under a deed dated March 1269, in which he is styled by Charles as 'Sordellus de Goido miles dilectus familiaris et fidelis noster', special mention being made of the important services rendered by him ('grandia, grata, et accepta servitia'); and by a second deed dated the same year (June 30, 1269) another castle in the same province is assigned to him for life. No further record of Sordello has been preserved, and the date and place of his death are unknown, but S.'s fiefs in the Abruzzi were reassigned, Aug. 30, 1269, to a certain knight of Charles's Proven¿ court, which may mean that S. died in the summer of 1269. There is a tradition that he came to a violent end, which though otherwise unconfirmed, is to a certain extent rendered probable by the place assigned to him by D. in Ante-Purgatory.

Of Sordello's poems some forty have been preserved, of which the most important in point of length is the Ensenhamen, or Documentum honoris, a didactic poem of more than 1,300 lines; the most interesting from the point of view of the Dante student is his lament for the death of Blacatz, from which it is commonly supposed that D. got the idea of assigning to Sordello the function of pointing out the various princes in the valley of flowers in AntePurgatory.

[See C. De Lollis, Vita e poesie di Sordello di Goito (Halle, 1896); G. Bertoni, I trovatori d'Italia (Modena, 1915), pp. 74-82; A. J. Chaytor, The Troubadours of Dante (Oxford, 1902), pp. 173-176; Sordello, Le poesie, edited by M. Boni (Bologna, 1954), pp. xiii-ciii; and M. Boni, 'Nuovi documenti riguardanti Sordello, SD, xxxii, fasc. I (1954), 29-36.]

The following account of Sordello is given by the old Proven¿ biographer:

Sordels si fo de Mantoana, d'un castel que a nom Got, gentils catanis. E fo avinens hom de la persona e fo bons chantaire e bons trobaire, e grans amaires; mas mout fo truans e fals vas dompnas e vas los barons ab cui el estava.

Et entendet se en ma dompna Conissa, sor de ser Aicelin e de ser Albric de Romans, q'era moiller del comte de Saint Bonifaci, ab cui el estava. E per volontat de miser Aicelin, el embletma dompna Colussa, e menet la-n via.

E pauc apres et el s'en anet en Cenedes, ad un castel d'agels d'Estras, de ser Henric e de ser Guillem e d'En Valpertin, q'eron mout siei amic; et esposet una soa seror celadamens, que avia nom Otha; e venc s'en puois a Trevis. E qand aqel d'Estras lo saup, si li volia offendre de la persona, e-il amic del comte de Sain Bonifaci eissamens; don el estava armatz sus en la casa de miser Aicelin; e qand el anava per la terra, el cavalgava en bos destricrs ab granda compaignia de cavalliers.

E per paor d'aicels qe-il volion offendre, el se partic et anet s'en en Proenssa. Et estet ab lo comte de Proenssa. Et amet una gentil dompna e bella de Proenssa; et apellava la en los sieus chantars, que el fazia per lieis, 'Doussa-Enemia'; per la cal dompna el fetz maintas bonas chanssos. (BT, pp. 322-323.)

Benvenuto, who gives a circumstantial account of the intrigue of Sordello with Cunizza (derived possibly from a lost Proven¿ source), says of him:

. . . hic fuit quidam civis mantuanus nomine Sordellus nobilis et prudens miles, et ut aliqui volunt, curialis, tempore Eccirini de Romano, de quo audivi (non tamen affirmo) satis jocosum novum, quod breviter est talis formae. Habebat Eccirinus quamdam sororem suam valde veneream, . . . Quae accensa amore Sordelli ordinavit caute, quod ille intraret ad eam tempore noctis per unum ostiolum posterius juxta coquinam palatii in civitate Veronae; et quia in strata erat turpe volutabrum porcorum, sive pocia brodiorum, ita ut locus nullo modo videretur suspectus, faciebat se portari per quemdam servum suum usque ad octiolum, ubi Cunitia parata recipiebat eum. Eccirinus autem hoc scito, uno sero subornatus sub specie servi, transportavit Sordellum, deinde reportavit. Quo facto, manifestavit se Sordello, et dixit: sufficit. De caetero abstineas accedere ad opus tam sordidum per locum tam sordidum. Sordellus terrefactus supplicanter petivit veniam, promittens numquam amplius redire ad sororem. Tamen Cunitia maledicta retraxit eum in primum fallum. Quare ipse timens Eccirinum formidatissimum hominum sui temporis, recessit ab ea, quem Eccirinus, ut quidam ferunt, fecit postea trucidari.

Of the office assigned to Sordello by D. he says:

. . . nota quod poeta pulcre fingit quod Sordellus duxerat istos poetas ad videndum istos viros illustres, quia fuit homo curialis et curiosus investigator ct admirator omnium valentum sui temporis et omnium virtutes et mores sciebat et referebat.