"
[Illustration: Colour Plate S. GIOVANNI BATTISTA]
Thus Dante called attention to his great achievement, by which I
suppose he hoped at once to vindicate his dignity as a great man,
certainly greater than any one present, and by this means to lend
importance to his mission. Whatever may have been the personal result
of his sally, it did his mission no good at all. When the official
interview took place Dante, if we may believe something of the
apocryphal "Letter of Dante to Guido da Polenta," began to address the
doge in Latin and was bidden to speak in Italian or to obtain an
interpreter. His mission was a failure and Venice, who in the person
of her doge did her best to show either her ignorance of the great
poet who did her the honour of crossing her Piazza or of her
philistine contempt of him, lives in the _Divine Comedy_ only as an
illustration of Hell.
"Thus we from bridge to bridge ...
Pass'd on, and to the summit reaching, stood
To view another gap, within the round
Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs.
Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place.
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