Where ghosts walk : the haunts of familiar characters in history and literature . aught of the seven cantos, Gemmahad sent her eldest born, Pietro, a lad ofthirteen, to cheer his fathers loneliness inBologna, and—we cannot but surmise—with some faint hope that her husbandsheart would turn longingly to home andher for that in the boys face and voicethat recalled her younger and blither studied with his father duringDantes two years sojourn in the univer-sity town, and accompanied him in wan-derings that ended in Ravenna, themelancholy old city, old even in Dantesday. A second son, J
Where ghosts walk : the haunts of familiar characters in history and literature . aught of the seven cantos, Gemmahad sent her eldest born, Pietro, a lad ofthirteen, to cheer his fathers loneliness inBologna, and—we cannot but surmise—with some faint hope that her husbandsheart would turn longingly to home andher for that in the boys face and voicethat recalled her younger and blither studied with his father duringDantes two years sojourn in the univer-sity town, and accompanied him in wan-derings that ended in Ravenna, themelancholy old city, old even in Dantesday. A second son, Jacopo, was con-signed by his mother to the expatriatedfather, a few years after his brother leftFlorence. Whatever were the mitiga-tions of his banishment which the twobrought, Dantes heart yearned and sick-ened unto deathly faintness for the mostbeautiful and most famous daughter ofRome, Firenza. A bark without sailand without helm, his passionate lovefor the peerless Tuscan city was a magnetthat continually drew his thoughts towardher. Even after he found a pleasant asy-. DANTE ALIQHIERI, FROM THE FRESCO BY GIOTTO, FLORENCE. The youth with the clear-cut profile and fathomless eyes. Dantes Every-Day Wife 99 lum and kind friends in Ravenna, hepassed whole days in the balsamic boski-ness of her pine groves, thinking ofFlorence and civil wars, and meditatingcantos of his poem, Be assured that if the name of Gemma,or of the young daughters, fast growingto womanhood, ever passed his lips orescaped from his pen, we should haveheard of it. If he pined for home it wasbecause that home was in Firenza, notbecause Firenza was home. Madonna Gemma Alighieri never lookedagain into the deep eyes and upon the clas-sic face whose beauty had captivated andheld her heart. The exile drew his lastsigh in Ravenna in 1321, a homesick pil-grim to the close of his fifty-six years,dreaming hopelessly, almost in the death-hour, of return to his native country, andof hiding his white hairs beneath th
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