Henry Clark Barlow and Karl Witte:
A Friendship in Dante, with unpublished letters
VON JOHN LINDON
Lo sviluppo lineare della filologia testuale dantesca nell'ultimo secolo
ci offre infatti l'esempio di un'alta e spontanea collaborazione internazionale, in un movimento continuo e coerente, che va appunto dagli
studi di Carlo Witte sul testo delle opere di Dante [. . .] alle raffinate
e sicure esplorazioni dell'Inglese Edoardo Moore, che prendono le
mosse dal lavoro del Witte del quale si presentano modestamente come
continuazione e integrazione [ . . . ] , sino all'affermazione alla fine del
secolo della scuola fiorentina di Pio Rajna [. . .].
Thus Gianfranco Folena stressing, in his notable essay on ,La
filologia dantesca di Carlo Witte' (1965)1, the element of .international collaboration' that marks the .linear development' of nineteenth-century textual scholarship from Witte's pioneering work to
that of his English and Italian heirs and successors. In this perspective
it is clearly his connection with Moore, which began in 1876 and was
brought to an end by his death in 1883, that constitutes the vital link
between Germany and England. Yet this relationship might never have
come into being but for his earlier friendship with Henry Clark
Barlow, which paved the way for it: for Barlow did more than anyone
to publicize Witte's work in England during Moore's formative years,
while his own work, which owed much to Witte's encouragement, afforded stimulus to the Oxford scholar in his early Dante studies.
The following account of Barlow's relations with Witte is therefore
1
Dante e la cultura tedesca. Convegno di studi danteschi. Bressanone 1965,
Padua 1967, p. 113.
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offered not merely as an appendix to the essay on Barlow published
in the last volume of the Jahrbuch2, but as a contribution to the
broader history of what is now seen as one of the main strands in nineteenth-century Dante studies. It presents the complete text of the six
autograph letters from Witte extant among the Barlow Papers at
University College London, together with an edited selection from the
partially complementary Barlow letters preserved with Witte's other
Dante correspondence at Strasbourg 3 .
The two men first met in 1849 when Barlow visited Witte in Halle
towards the end of a prolonged tour of the German states. Just as his
.discovery' of Dante, in 1845, had come about through his love of art,
which had led him to Italy, so too his encounter with Witte was the
unplanned result of a stay in Dresden, where the picture gallery was
the main attraction 4 . However, on 29 September and 1 October he also
visited the Library there and examined its Dante treasures. On the second occasion he met the Director, Karl Falkenstein, who the next day
took him to call on the court painter and Dante illustrator Vogel von
Vogelstein 5 . In his diary of the tour Barlow records several meetings
with Vogel, during which he sat for his portrait and the two art and
2
J. Lindon, ,H.C. Barlow and his contribution to textual criticism of the
Divine Comedy', DDJ, 63 (1988), pp. 47-74.
3
Barlow Papers, University College London Library (hereafter BPUCL),
266; Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire, Strasbourg (hereafter BNUS),
MS 2529, ff. 24-43.
4
The visit is recorded in Barlow's diary of the tour: .GERMANY. To Berlin
Dresden Prag, 1849. To Wien by Regensburg. TRIEST. 1850' (BPUCL,
150/1), from which it emerges (p. 107) that he travelled to Dresden with an
introduction, given him in Berlin, to the director of the Dresden gallery.
5
.Oct. 1st. Visited the Library and made the acquaintance of the Librarian
Herr Karl Falkenstein who informed me of the great passion of Prince John
for the works of Dante — and that Herr Vogel von Vogelstein had made a series
of designs to illustrate it. There is a codex here of the 15th century and two
early copies, Venice 1477, Florence 1481. Oct. 2nd. Went with Herr Falkenstein [. . .] to visit Herr Vogel von Vogelstein — showed me his Dante Album
[...]. Dr Witte he considered the first critic for Dante in Germany' (ib., p.
203). On C.K. Falkenstein (1801-55), Oberbibliothekar at Dresden since 1834,
see Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 6, p. 556, and on C.C. Vogel von
Vogelstein (1788-1868), U. Thieme, F. Becker, Künstler-Lexicon, Vol. 34, pp.
488-89, and the various items in this journal (DDJ, 2, 19, 22, 25).
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Henry Clark B a r l o w (1806-1876), drawing in black chalk by Carl Christian
Vogel von Vogelstein (1788-1866), dated Dresden 16 October 1849. Original
(276 x 213 mm) in the Vogelstein Portrait Collection, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, catalogue no. C 2863.
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Dante enthusiasts struck up what was to prove an enduring friendship 6 . And it was Vogel who, having introduced him to Witte's reputation as ,the first critic for Dante in Germany', went on to give Barlow
his introduction to the man himself: on 23 October he set out for Halle
armed with a letter from Vogel and on the following day paid Witte
two visits. His first impressions were naively enthusiastic: ,Dr Witte
has a wonderful memory and knows everything about his subject
[ . . ]. He is the last of the Great Dantophylae and speaks Italian most
admirably, it is the real Italian of Boccaccio and Dante' 7 . He also
recorded what must have been Witte's humorous comment on his
celibacy: ,Vivere colle donne e male, ma vivere senza e peggio' 8 .
That Barlow was already interested in textual questions is clear from
his diary jottings of readings found in the Dresden codex of the Commedia and Witte's copy of the Vendeliniana9. But it was an interest
that blossomed under the influence of Witte, who told him of his plan
to collect all the variants of Inferno III 10 and forthwith added him to
the honoured roll of assistants enlisted in pursuit of this goal. At
Witte's request he undertook to collect the variants of the British
Museum manuscripts, as he reported to Vogel, after his return to London, in the following account of the meeting:
6
The portrait, in black chalk (276 x 213 mm), went to swell Vogel's vast collection of drawings of distinguished contemporaries and so passed to the
Kupferstichkabinett at Dresden, where it is now catalogued as C 2863. It bears
the date 16 October 1849 in Vogel's hand and a Dantesque inscription by
Barlow. I am most grateful to the staff of the Kabinett for information about
the portrait and to the Director, Dr Werner Schmidt, for permission to publish
it as an illustration to the present article.
In 1849 Barlow noted (BPUCL, 150/1, p. 206) the ,great regard' already
shown for him by Vogel, who much later (1862-65) wrote him numerous letters (BPUCL, 260) full of admiration for his Dante writings, which he sought
to publicize in Munich by bringing them to the attention of I. von Dollinger
and inserting a notice in Morgenblatt zur Bayerischen Zeitung (February
1864).
7
BPUCL, 150/1, p. 217.
8
lb., p. 219.
9
lb., pp. 206-207 and 216-217. Even in his diary for 1845, the year when
he .discovered' Dante, there are occasional notes of readings.
10
lb., p. 217.
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My dear Professor
I have for two or three weeks, ever since my arrival in London, been going to write, I may say, to my Spiritual Father in Dante, for to you my heart
turns with filial regard and affection. I have to thank you not only for the
great kindness you showed me in Dresden, for which I cannot be sufficiently grateful, but also for the very valuable introduction you gave me
to Prof. Witte, in whom I actually found Dante alive again. The night I
arrived at Halle I could scarcely sleep for thinking of my so much desired
interview in the morning, and asked almost tremblingly of the ober kelner
if he knew whether Prof. Witte was in town or not, and right glad was I
to hear for answer that he had been seen go past the hotel that afternoon.
So the wished for morning came, and the first thing after breakfast I
waited on the Professor. He received me in his study with such welcome
as none but Germans ever give, so hearty, so sincere, and so brotherly. To
talk of Dante and in Italian seemed like a fountain of water in a dry and
barren land. The Professor rose up refreshed amid his ponderous tomes
and appeared renovated in all the buoyant spirits of youth and gladness.
To say truth it rejoiced me not a little to find him still so young. I had pictured to myself that with so long a literary reputation he must be much
advanced in years. What then was my delight and astonishment to find
him still ,nel mezzo del cammin' or nearly so. We had a charming conversation. It was like talking with Dante in his own tongue. Nor did the Professor confine himself to words. He loaded me with pamphlets, papers,
and maps, and was graciously pleased to associate me with himself and
his friends in collating the third Canto of the Inferno, and gave me a letter
of introduction to Panizzi the librarian in chief of our Library in the
British Museum for this purpose 11 .1 have not yet commenced operations
but purpose doing so shortly [...]. I staid a day in Halle and in the evening
again saw the Professor. He promised on my return to introduce me to his
daughter Beatrice: God bless her! Methinks I am in love with her before
I have seen her, such a charm is there in that beloved name [. . .]12.
11
This introduction to Panizzi was kept and framed by Barlow (see his letter of 20 November 1867 below) and has not come down to us with his Dante
papers.
12
BPUCL, 167/5, draft dated 6 December 1849, continuing with a grateful
account of the warm reception given him at Düsseldorf by Wilhelm Schadow
and Karl Mosler (respectively Director and Professor of Art History at the
Academy), to whom Vogel had introduced him. (BPUCL, 150/1, pp.
233-239, contains details of his visit to Düsseldorf and of Schadow's
.spiritual' diagnosis of the .troubles that had overtaken Germany'.) It is interesting to find Vogel, who had known Schadow since their early days in
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This was no passing infatuation, yet other interests (mainly artistic:
he embarked on a long series of letters to the press about the National
Gallery) were given precedence over the collation-work, and the results
were not ready to post to Halle until the end of May 1850 13 . The byproduct of the work, based on information gleaned from two of the
manuscripts collated 14 , was Barlow's first Dante publication, his
short paper on the reading of Inferno V, 59. This was printed on 18
June (with the date 20 June) and reproduced a few days later in the
Morning Post after some fifty copies had been privately circulated 15 .
Several years were to pass, however, before he again communicated
with Witte or published on Dante. But he continued to travel, and
Rome, using the Nazarene connection (so important for Witte's .conversion'
to Dante) for the benefit of the English Dante enthusiast. Barlow does not
appear to have remained in contact with his Düsseldorf acquaintances, yet
he shows appreciation of Nazarene art, e.g. the approving reference to
Overbeck's .Italia and Germania' in his letter of 31 December 1867. The letter
to Vogel also dwells on the irrelevance of statistics to textual criticism and
refers to the transmission from London of a paper entrusted to Barlow by
Vogel for Thomas Carlyle, whose translation of Inferno is briefly commented
upon.
13
The collations and a short accompanying letter in Italian occupy three
sides of a large folded sheet addressed to Witte (BNUS, MS 1811) and bearing
the postmark ,27 May 1850'. This confirms a note made by Barlow in
BPUCL, 150/1, p. 269. A copy of the collations and some preparatory notes
are at BPUCL, 6/9; the copy, brought back from Halle, of Witte's circular
II terzo canto di Dante, Breslau 1826, is at BPUCL, 90. In BNUS, MS 1811,
there are also two copies, for each of the British Museum MSS examined, of
Witte's printed list of Inferno III loci.
14
Add. Mss. 10317 and Egerton 932. For his work on Witte's behalf Barlow
was referred to the Keeper of MSS, Sir Frederick Madden, who on 24 May
drew his attention to the reading ,che suge decte' and the Latin gloss ,id est
mammas vel ubera dedit filio cum quo deinde concubuit' to be found in MS
10317, which Madden himself had acquired for the Museum (BPUCL, 150/1,
pp. 268—69). Madden thus shares with Witte the credit for Barlow's debut as
a textual critic. Later he was to submit Dante MSS to Barlow before purchase
for the Museum.
15
See BPUCL, 150/1, p. 270. Three copies are at BPUCL, 1/1. Panizzi
acknowledged two on 20 June (BPUCL, 227). Madden, too, recorded receipt
of one in his diary entry for 21 June (Bodleian Library Oxford, MS Eng.
Hist. C 163, p. 173). Witte's copy is now BNUS, Cd. 105883.
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thanks to Witte's influence the examination of Dante manuscripts
became increasingly important to him as an object of travel16. He
regularly heard of Witte, moreover, from their common acquaintance,
that colourful fixture of the English colony in Florence, Seymour
Kirkup, with whom he frequently corresponded, and who rated Witte
very highly as a Dante scholar but disapproved of his textual preoccupation. Kirkup urged Barlow to concentrate instead on interpretation and encouraged his already existing interest in the figure of
Beatrice 17 .
Then, in 1853, he returned to Germany and toured Westphalia,
Brandenburg and Saxony. In Berlin he visited the eighty-four-year-old
von Humboldt and came away elated 18 . But a second visit to Halle
was also, naturally, on the agenda, and it took place on 10 October:
16
See BPUCL, 6/5,6/7 and 6/8, his first extensive accumulations of notes
on MSS, made in Italy, 1850-51, and at Paris in 1852.
17
Ever since .discovering' Dante at Pisa in 1845, while attending Centofanti's lectures (see n. 75 below), Barlow had held that Beatrice is no less a symbolic figure in the Vita Nuova than in the Commedia: the personification
of man's pursuit of ,il vero bene' (BPUCL, 145,14 March 1845). Similar views
are argued, in his forthright letters (BPUCL, 206, forty-five items, 1845-70),
by Seymour Kirkup, who rates Witte and Rossetti as ,the two ablest of Dante's
commentators' but adds ,1 am for Rossetti' (26 April 1852) and repeatedly
exalts Rossetti, while criticizing Witte (and Barlow himself) for indulging in
,verbal criticism' and while also upholding Rossetti against Witte in matters
of interpretation, e.g. Rossetti's theory that Philosophy in the Convivio is
the same person as Beatrice, 25 January 1854). Barlow expounded his views
on Beatrice in the Morning Post (1854) and before the Accademia dei Quiriti
(1855), and retained a lifelong interest in the topic, which shows itself in his
reaction to Witte's edition of the Vita Nuova (see below), his notes on Rossetti's Beatrice (BPUCL, 56, pp. 28—33, post-1871) and his lengthy criticisms of
D'Ancona's edition of the Vita Nuova (BPUCL, 55, .British Museum 1876').
On Kirkup see Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 31, G. Artom Treves,
Anglo-fiorentini di cento anni fa, Florence 1953, pp. 81—87 et passim, and
G. Pellegrini, .Appunti su Seymour Kirkup', in Inghilterra e Toscana nell'Ottocento, Florence 1968, pp. 109-117.
18
,1 felt quite elated for the rest of the day' (BPUCL, 150/3, p. 140, 22
August 1853). The diary (pp. 134—39) records the visit and conversation in
some detail. Later, in his autobiographical Memoir (see n. 57 below), Barlow
published (p. 10) von Humboldt's letter of invitation.
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Soon after my arrival I called on Dr Witte who had not long returned from
Florence 19 . He lamented the death of Ozanam - said that he had shown
that the Monarchia was what Dante alluded to when he said to Virgil
Da te io presi
Lo bello stile che mi ha fatto honore.
This bello stile means monarchism etc. He believed that Beatrice was at
first intended as a donna of flesh and blood, but subsequently the woman
was sunk and lost in the spiritual character [. . .]. I thought Dr Witte much
altered and thinner, in fact at first I did not quite recognize him, nor he
me. I saw two of his sons, but did not see Beatrice. I heard she was still
quite a little girl and did not know anything of Italian 20 .
So the promised introduction to Witte's Beatrice failed to materialize; but some discussion of Dante's evidently occurred, and this second encounter again spurred Barlow into publishing on Dante. This
time, however, what he wrote was also about Witte. On 31 August 1854
the Morning Post carried his review of the latter's Cento correzioni
alle Opere minori di Dante Allighieri (1853), copies of which he had
brought back from Halle. The article eulogizes the scholar ,who stands
pre-eminently at the head of the cultivators of Italian literature in
Germany, and is par excellence the chief of the Dantesca scuola' and
surveys his meritorious studies of Dante's minor works (said to be
regrettably neglected in England); but most of the piece is devoted
to arguing the case for a symbolic interpretation of Beatrice in the Vita
Nuova.
Witte, for his part, was at work on a review concerning Barlow, his
,Vier neue Ausgaben von Dante's Divina Commedia' 21 , implicitly a
rebuttal of the Englishman's paper on Inferno V, 59, since (as he confided to A. von Reumont): ,Ich habe dabei Gelegenheit genommen,
über das unglückliche „sugger dette" meine Stimme abzugeben und
19
He had returned on 26 September (see DDJ, 24, p. 35). Details of his
journey in H. Witte, H. Haupt, Karl Witte. Ein Leben für Dante, Hamburg
1971, pp. 222-24.
20
BPUCL, 150/3, pp. 239-40.
21
Published 1854; revised in Witte's Dante-Forschungen, Vol. 1, pp.
183-204.
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wenigstens scheint es mir, als ob die dort beigebrachten Griinde
geeignet sind, jene „Kapucinervariante" definitiv zu beseitigen'22.
TWo of the four editions reviewed were those of Mauro Ferranti
(Ravenna 1848), Barlow's original inspiration for the controversial
reading, and of Brunone Bianchi, who in the fourth edition of his
commentary (Florence 1854) had adopted it on the strength of
Barlow's 1850 paper. Witte's review is not to be found in the Barlow
papers, whereas Barlow's review of Cento correzioni (presumably a
complimentary copy, though there is no trace of an accompanying letter) figures among Witte's collection of Dante pamphlets at
Strasbourg23.
From then on, in fact, with a virtual repetition of the 1849-53 pattern of events, communication between the two scholars seems to have
ceased for several years. Could it be that on both occasions Witte failed to respond to Barlow's offerings? Certainly no letter from Witte
earlier than 1857 survives among Barlow's papers. Nor, surprisingly
perhaps, did their paths ever cross except at Halle: one might have expected them also to meet at some point in Italy, if only by some more
or less fortuitous combination of events. But in 1854 Witte ventured
no further than the Engadine, while Barlow lingered in France
through the autumn months, and then, for much of 1855, in Rome:
in the June of that year he read an expanded version of his interpretation of Beatrice24 to the Accademia dei Quiriti, which elected him a
22
Universitätsbibliothek Bonn (hereafter UBB), S1068, letter 77, 10 May
1854, transcribed with minor inaccuracies in DDJ, 24, p. 37.
23
BNUS, Cd. 10553 (.Schriften über Dante', XIV, 10).
24
BPUCL, 23, comprises a rough copy and two fair copies, one headed:
,The paper on Beatrice read before the Quiriti — Rome, 6 June'. A further copy
was given to Marquis Filippo Raffaelli, who published it posthumously as:
Beatrice. Discorso di Henry Clark Barlow pubblicato ora per la prima volta.
Fermo 1890. Detailed records of Bar low's travels, 1854-56, in BPUCL, 150/4,
152, 153; summary indications in his Brief Memoir; p. 11. For Witte's travels
in 1854 and 1856 see DDJ, 24, pp. 39, 47-48, and A. von Reumont, .Carlo
Witte. Ricordi', Archivio storico italiano, 16 (1885), p. 69.
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corresponding member. Later that summer he was in Hiscany en route
for Paris (the Exposition Universelle) and England, but when Witte
revisited his beloved Florence, in 1856, Barlow was on a five-month
tour of Denmark and Sweden, .examining into the remains of Scandinavian mythology and antiquities' 25 .
At the end of that year, however, postal contact was resumed when
Barlow sent Witte a copy 2 6 of his paper discussing the reading of
Paradiso VII, 114, a point he had looked up in Witte's Vendeliniana
in 1849. To this Witte responded in the most friendly and flattering
terms, stressing the value of Barlow's work for his own critical edition
of the Comedy, sending him the recently prepared notice and
specimen page of the edition 27 , and begging him to publicize the project in England:
Verehrtester Herr und werther Freund!
Durch die freundliche Zusendung Ihrer „Remarks" haben Sie mir viel
Freude gemacht. Sie begründen die allein richtige Lesart der Stelle Parad.
VII. 114. so sicher, daß sich kaum etwas hinzufügen läßt; Sie verbinden
aber mit Ihren scheinbar nur auf einen einzigen Vers der göttlichen Komödie bezüglichen Untersuchungen sehr treffende kritische Urtheile über die
bisherigen Herausgeber. An diesen Urtheilen habe ich um so größerer [sie]
Gefallen gefunden, da die Vorbereitungen zu meiner eigenen Ausgabe, die
hoffentlich noch in diesem Jahre erscheinen soll, mich gelehrt haben, wie
durchaus richtig Alles ist, was Sie in dieser Hinsicht sagen. Zur Ergänzung
der von Ihnen gegebenen Nachrichten ließe sich vielleicht noch anführen,
daß nach den 1855. von Gigli herausgegebnen „Studj sulla Div. Comm."
schon im Jahr 1546. Bened. Varchi und dessen Freunde auf die Autorität
von 13. durch Bastiano de Rossi verglichenen Msten die Lesart „per l'una
o per l'altra" annahmen. Auch findet sie sich neuerdings adoptirt worden
in der Ausg. des Mauro Ferranti Ravenna 1848. und in der von Gregoretti
Venezia 1856.
Ich sende Ihnen beifolgend eine vorläufige Probe von meiner Ausgabe. Seitdem sie gedruckt ward, bin ich mit dem Hofbuchdrucker Decker
25
H.C. Barlow, Essays on Symbolism, London 1866, p. 82.
Now BNUS, Cd. 105884. For the 1849 reference to Witte's library:
BPUCL, 150/1, pp. 216-27.
27
Saggio d'una nuova edizione della Divina Commedia, da farsi sulla fede
di tre dei più autorevoli testi a penna, Halle, 1 July 1856. Now BPUCL, 170.
26
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in Berlin, dem ausgezeichnetsten unter den deutschen Typographen, über
den Druck übereingekommen, der in jeder Weise besser als diese Probe
ausfallen soll. Auch werde ich außer den drei genannten noch ein vierter
Manuscript zum Grunde legen, vermuthlich das des trefflichen Duca di
Sermoneta. Inzwischen wäre es mir sehr angenehm, wenn die Dantefreunde in England auf die zu erwartende Ausgabe im Voraus aufmerksam würden. Vielleicht fügten Sie, verehrter Freund, zu der vielfachen Güte, die
Sie schon für mich gehabt haben, auch noch die hinzu, ein Wort über meinen Plan im Morning Herald, oder wo Sie sonst denken, zu sagen. Sie würden dadurch mich und meinen Buchhändler zu lebhaftem Danke verpflichten. Italienische Zeitschriften haben von dem Unternehmen schon
mehrfach und mit vielem Wohlwollen gesprochen.
Ich werde mich in hohem Grade freuen, Sie in diesem Jahre in Halle
wiederzusehn; um so mehr, wenn bis dahin Ihre kritische Arbeit vollendet
ist, da mir dieselbe für meine Ausgabe gewiß von großem Nutzen seyn
wird. Von Mitte August bis gegen Ende September pflege ich indess verreist zu seyn.
Haben Sie den langen Artikel über Dante Literatur von Saint René Tàillandier in der Revue des deux mondes gelesen 2S? Der Mann hat viel gesammelt; faßt aber doch Alles in eigenthümlich franzoesischer Weise ungründlich auf. Ist es denn wahr, daß Cailey, der gute Dante-Uebersetzer, ein
Kaufmann ist, und seine Uebersetzung größtentheils in Archangel geschrieben hat 29 ? Koennen Sie mir nicht noch Dante-Handschriften in
England nennen, die De Batines ausgelassen hat? Ich wünschte, daß meine jedenfalls sehr ausführliche Einleitung recht vollständig würde.
In der Hoffnung, recht bald einige Zeilen von Ihnen zu erhalten, bin
ich mit herzlicher Ergebenheit
Halle 1857. Jan. 7.
der Ihrige
Carl Witte
28
.Dante Alighieri et la littérature dantesque en Europe', Revue des deux
mondes, 6 (1856), pp. 473-520.
29
Charles Bagot Cayley (1823-83), who had published a terza rima
translation of the Commedia in 1851—55, was born near St Petersburg, the
son of a Russia merchant, but educated in England, where he led the sedentary life of a scholar. The article referred to (p. 518) portrays him as being
himself a merchant confined to the far North and as having studied Dante
,pour se consoler de sa solitude, pour retrouver le soleil au milieu des glaces
et des brumes*.
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The ,few lines' of reply, if written, do not survive among Witte's correspondence at Strasbourg, but Barlow's notice of the planned edition
promptly appeared, in the Athenaeum for 21 February, and a copy of
it was sent to Halle 30 . Once again Barlow had published under the
stimulus of Witte's friendship. In fact, slight though it is, the notice
marks his début as a contributor to the Athenaeum, whose regular
Dante correspondent he soon became. By the time of Witte's next letter he had made some two dozen contributions, some of which had
found their way to Halle, as had a copy of the pamphlet Francesca
da Rimini, her lament and vindication (1859)31. These, in fact, are the
years that see his emergence as a noted figure in the world of Dante
studies, with a series of publications sustained by his accumulated
learning and growing reputation, and also prompted by the current exploitation of Dante in the Italian independence movement, which he
staunchly supported. The same period also sees his announcement (in
an appendix to Francesca da Rimini) of an ambitious programme of
projected Dante publications and the initial phases of his work on the
Critical Contributions.
Witte had meanwhile given priority to completing his critical edition of the Comedy on the basis agreed with Decker in 1856, and his
next letter is written to inform Barlow of the work's publication and
to beg him review it, the rich English market alone promising good
sales for such an expensive volume:
Signor Barlow gentilissimo
Sono degli anni che non ebbi altre nuove vostre che quelle che mi pervennero per mezzo dell'Ateneo, o di qualche scritto vostro che aveste la gentilezza di mandarmi. Ne ho desunto che continuate coll'antico ardore i
vostri studj sul nostro Maestro ed Autore, e che nell'istesso tempo non
avete cessato di volermi bene. Rimasi contentissimo della ben lunga serie
di opere da voi annunziate come in preparazione in fine dell'elegante
vostro opuscolo sulla Francesca da Rimini, e non vedo l'ora di averle fra
30
BNUS, Cd. 10553 (.Schriften über Dante', XIII, 1: The Athenaeum, No.
1530).
31
BNUS, Cd. 105885. 1857 and 1858 Athenaeum articles at Cd. 10553,
XIII, 2 and 3.
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le mani. Essendo oramai più che sessagenario, temo che „questa tanto picciola vigilia De' miei sensi, ch'è del rimanente" non mi basterà per vederle
tutte, ma saluterò con nuovo piacere ognuna di esse che mi capiterà prima
della morte.
Anch'io posso dire di non esser rimasto ozioso in questo frattempo. La
mia edizione critica della Commedia che anni sono annunziaste con tanta
gentilezza nell'Ateneo, vide finalmente la luce. Mi dispiace di non poter
mandarvene una copia; ma il numero degli esemplari accordatomi dal
librajo editore è così ristretto che mi basta appena pei regali più inevitabili.
Oramai il libro dev'esser giunto nel vostro paese, e sono persuaso che non
mancherete di esaminarlo. Conoscendo per esperienza propria la difficoltà di consimili lavori, ne scuserete l'imperfezione che pur troppo vi
troverete. Desidero che il modo in cui a p. LV parlo delle vostre pubblicazioni possa soddisfarvi. Del resto il nome vostro ricorre diverse volte nei
prolegomeni critici, come a p. LXI, LXXII, e LXXIV.
Lo prenderei per un segno della vostra amicizia se mi faceste il piacere
di stampare quanto potrete prima un articolo critico sulla mia edizione,
la quale, essendo eseguita con qualche lusso tipografico, è riuscita tanto
cara che il librajo deve sperar una gran parte dello smercio nella ricca
vostra patria. Non prendetevi, vi prego, soggezione veruna a criticare
quanto vi dispiace in essa. Intendiamoci però. Innumeri saranno i passi,
nei quali due Dantofili terranno un parere diverso sulla giusta lezione del
testo. Discordate dunque quantunque crederete sopra tal o tal altra
variante. Ma il punto sopra il quale vorrei conoscere la vostra opinione
si è il sistema fondamentale della mia critica, cioè di non ammettere neanche una parola del testo, che non sia fondata sopra l'uno o l'altro dei codici
confrontati.
Se non isbaglio abitate l'istessa Contea con Mylord Ashburnham. Non
potreste introdurmi appresso di questo Signore? La lettera che gli diressi,
anni sono, rimase senza risposta, ed anche più delle notizie relative a
qualche suo codice della Commedia, mi preme di saper il vero intorno a
un testo della „Vulgaris Eloquentia" che si dice esistere appresso a lui 32 .
Sarei contentissimo di rivedervi, se, riprendendo i vostri giri Danteschi,
passaste per il mio paese. Avrei cose assai a mostrarvi ben degne a
32
Barlow does not seem to have tried to approach Lord Ashburnham at
this stage (or, if he did, he too received no reply), but in August 1876 he was
granted access to the Ashburnham collection (see DDJ, 63, p. 68). After his
death Edward Moore sent Witte notes on Ashburnham MSS of the Cornmedia and Monorchia (BNUS, MSS 2529 and 1811A, letters of 26 July 1881
and 8 March 1883).
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richiamar l'attenzione di un così dotto Dantofilo. Ma se volete trovarmi
vivente, vi prego di mettervi qualche premura, chè di più in più comincio
a farmi vecchio.
Scusate se vi scrissi in Italiano. Forse avrei dovuto servirmi del mio
idioma patrio, del quale, come non ignoro, siete parimente pratico. In ogni
caso vi prego di rispondermi in Inglese.
Augurandovi un felice capo d'anno, vi saluto di tutto cuore. Continuate
a volermi bene.
Halle. 26. Die. 1861.
Carlo Witte
Once again, Barlow lost no time in responding to the request for
publicity, but all he published in the first instance was a short notice
in the Morning Post (5 February 1862): his review came out some
months later in The Parthenon (24 May). If Witte was dismissive
about the Morning Post piece 33 , it seems likely that he was also less
than satisfied by the review, which evades explicit assessment of his
.system'. But no record of his reaction would appear to exist, though
he certainly received a copy of the review 34 . That Barlow had referred
to this failure to respond may well be what prompted Vogel's comment, in a letter of 26 July: .Professor Witte seems sick! He answers
to nobodi, even to his friends in Italie 35 !' In the circumstances it is not
perhaps surprising that Barlow apparently did not send .Dante and
his commentators' {Home and Foreign Review, October 1863) 36 , one
of his best efforts, in which he pays admiring tribute to Witte and gives
a wholly favourable account of his great edition.
33
.Anzeigen — Recensionen kann man sie nicht nennen — meiner Ausgabe
habe ich bis itzt gelesen von Barlow in der Morning Post, von Scolari in der
Venetianer, von Dr. Paur in der Stern-Zeitung und von unsrem lieben alten
Blanc in den Brockhausschen Blättern. Freilich gelernt habe ich aus keiner'
(Witte to von Reumont, 7 March 1862, UBB, S1068, No. 120, published with
one misreading in DDJ, 24, p. 62). Witte's copy of the Morning Post containing the notice is now at BNUS, Cd. 10553 (.Schriften über Dante', XIV, 11).
34
BNUS, Cd. 10553 (.Schriften über Dante', XIII, 4). Cf. DDJ, 63. pp.
62-64.
35
BPUCL, 260. The letter acknowledges receipt of a copy of the review.
36
Vol. 3, pp. 574—609. The article declares Witte to be ,a miracle of learning' and his edition ,an imperishable monument to his memory' (pp. 597 and
609).
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Other Barlow essays of that period, however, did reach Halle: II gran
rifiuto, The Young King and Bertrand de Born and II conte Ugolino
e I'arcivescovo Ruggieri (1862) are all to be found at Strasbourg 37 . So
too is an inscribed presentation copy of the Critical
Contributions38,
which Witte marked .Received on Christmas eve' (i.e. 24 December
1864) and perused immediately, pencilling the margins with corrections, queries and even exclamation marks. It is clear, in fact, that his
initial reaction was quite unfavourable, for on 3 January 1865 he told
von Reumont:
Kritische Leistungen für den Text der Divina Commedia scheinen in der
Luft zu liegen. Doctor Henry Clark Barlow, den Sie ja wol auch persönlich
kennen, schickt mir einen starken Groß-Octavband „Contributions to the
study of the div. comm." worin er die Ausbeute seiner Handschriftenforschungen niederlegt. Eine furchtbare Maße von Notizen, darüber, wie
so und so viel MSte an der oder jener Stelle lesen; aber so absolut planlos
u. ohne allen inneren Zusammenhang angelegt, daß sich daraus auch nicht
das kleinste kritische Resultat entnehmen läßt. Noch dazu muß ich nach
meinen Aufzeichnungen annehmen, daß auch die gegebene Notizen in
hohem Grade unzuverlässig sind 39 .
These damning remarks take on an unwitting irony when set against
Barlow's professed aim, in writing the Contributions, to produce ,the
most critical work on the Divina Commedia ever written' 40 : an aim
probably derived, moreover, from Witte's example, and certainly
fostered by his earlier commendations, which had established the
Englishman's reputation for rigorous scholarship 41 .
37
BNUS, Cd. 105890, Cd. 121886 and D. 130270 respectively. Some,
however, may have reached Witte at a later stage (see letters 24 and 31
December 1867 below).
38
BNUS, Cd. 105886.
39
UBB, S1068, No. 140. The passage is published with several omissions
or alterations in DD J, 24, p. 70.
40
BPUCL, 165, draft reply to a letter of 14 August 1863 from the historian
J.D. Acton.
41
See, for example, in Vogel's cit. letter of 26 July 1862, the reference to
his ,severi studj danteschi' (the words are Scolari's). On 20 May 1865 C.F.
Carpellini wrote to Barlow from Siena: ,Che Voi siate dei migliori o il migliore
dei cultori delle cose Dantesche in Inghilterra, se non si sapesse, basterebbe
ad attestarlo la sola testimonianza dell'Egr. Carlo Witte, che Vi ha si
degnamento lodato' (BPUCL, 181). For Carpellini and Barlow see also DD J,
63, p. 55.
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The 1865 Dante sexcentenary, and the grand festival in Florence
which he had first proposed and in which he meant to participate prominently, had given him a strong incentive to complete the Contributions for that occasion, and the consequent pressure under which they
were finished must account for some of the inaccuracy (if not the lack
of coherent purpose) noted by Witte. Yet with all its faults the work
was acclaimed, studied and quoted. At the festival it was awarded the
medal coined by the Florentine Municipality, and it must have played
a part in its author's elevation to a knighthood 42 . Barlow's involvement in the politicization of Dante could only be distasteful to Witte,
whose 1865 judgment of the Contributions may have been soured by
this factor, for in a later verdict, while still stressing the lack of any
»consistently executed plan', he formulates the criticism in such a way
as to imply that his late friend's work is in other respects commendable 43 .
Meanwhile, in September 1865, the German Dante Society came into being with a handful of Italians among its members. In the ensuing
months Witte was exercised by the question of foreign membership,
seeing Italian participation as a threat to the Society's autonomy
which should be resisted, as in August 1867 he wrote to von Reumont:
Ihr Rath für die fernere Wirksamkeit des Vereins wäre in hohem Grade zu
wünschen. Eine Lebensfrage wird für uns seyn, ob wir, wie man vom Ausland her mehrfach gewünscht hat, den Verein über die Gränzen Deutschlands erstrecken wollen. Gegen Theilnahme der Italiener würde ich mich
entschieden aussprechen: sie wäre gleich bedeutend mit dem Aufgeben unserer Selbständigkeit. Dagegen hätte ich gegen die Betheiligung von Engländern, Americanern u.s.w. nichts Wesentliches einzuwenden 44 .
42
A copy of the book was sent to the King of Italy and Barlow received
an acknowledgment (BPUCL, 97/5).
43
Dante-Forschungen, Vol. 2, p. 333. The relevant passage is quoted in
DDJ, 63, pp. 58-59. Witte's opposition to the Risorgimento politicization of
Dante and Dante studies is well known. That Barlow had been strongly
associated with it in his mind is implied by his public reference to him as a
purveyor of .fictions' in the article .Vermuthungen über Dante's Geburtstag',
with which in this journal he distanced himself from the 1865 Italian Dante
celebrations (DDJ, 1, p. 145).
44
UBB, S1068, No. 155,22 August 1867, published with alterations in DDJ,
24, p. 79.
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By the time the Society next met, early in October 1867, his willingness to admit .Englishmen, Americans etc.' had crystallized into
a scheme to recruit such members as a counterweight to Italian influence. On his proposal three new honorary members, Barlow,
Longfellow and Scolari, were elected. Barlow was in Vienna at the
time, in the middle of a three-month art tour taking in many German
centres, and before leaving England he had written to Witte 45 , evidently intending to visit him again. But that was not to be. Instead, he got
back home in November to find the following letter:
Halle 1867. Oct. 4.
Geehrtester Herr!
Am 13. August schrieben Sie an mich, und am 12. Morgens hatte ich
Halle verlaßen. Ihr lieber Brief wurde mir nach Tirol nachgesendet: er
giebt aber keine Adreße an wohin ich Ihnen haette antworten koennen. Ueberdies hatte ich meine Gruende dies Blatt bis nach der General-Versammlung unserer Dante Gesellschaft zu verschieben. Gestern und heute ist dieselbe gehalten, und sie hat einstimmig einen Danteforscher in England,
einen in Italien und einen in America zu Ehrenmitgliedern ernannt. Der
erste von diesen Dreien sind Sie, und ich hoffe, daß diese Anerkennung
Ihnen nicht unwillkommen seyn wird, wenn gleich das Kreuz von Sanct
Mauritius und Lazarus uns deutschen Gelehrten zuvorgekommen ist. Das
Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft wird Ihnen durch die Buchhandlung kostenfrei
zugestellt werden. Ihren Namen werden Sie wiederholt, z.B. p. 63,145, finden. Besonders haeufiger Gebrauch ist aber von Ihren so lehrreichen
„Contributions" in den Anmerkungen zu der deutschen Uebersetzung der
Divina Commedia gemacht worden.
Das Athenaeum bekomme ich leider seit mehr als einem Jahr nicht mehr
regelmaeßig zu sehn, und so ist mir auch Ihr Artikel ueber Parad. XVI.
72. 46 unbekannt geblieben. Ueberhaupt bedaure ich recht sehr, daß nicht
Ihre vielen zerstreuten Aufsaetze, die so manche schoene Bemerkung enthalten, gesammelt sind. - Fuer „Come del vostro il cibo", das Sie v. 69.
vorschlagen, sind, wie auch die Berliner Ausgabe anfuehrt, sehr gewichtige
45
This letter is regrettably missing at BNUS. BPUCL include no diary for
the 1867 tour.
46
,Le cinque spade', The Athenaeum, No. 2073, 20 July 1867. The copy
posted by Barlow with his reply to this letter (see below) is now BNUS, Cd.
10553 (.Schriften über Dante', XIII, 5).
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Autoritaeten, und ich werde mich sehr freuen, Ihre Eroerterung darueber
zu lesen.
Das neueste Verzeichniß der Mitglieder weist etwa sechs Italiener auf,
und die Zahl wird sich noch vermehren. Dennoch muß ich entschieden
wuenschen, daß die Gesellschaft ihren von den italienischen Dantestudien
unabhaengigen Charakter bewahre. Gewiß sehr willkommen wird uns dagegen die Theilnahme, insbesondre auch die thaetige Mitwirkung, der Angelsaechsischen Stammesverwandten in England und Nordamerica seyn.
Auch ist die Kenntniß der englischen Sprache bei uns so weit verbreitet,
daß ich keinen Grund absehe der es hinderte, einen uns englisch zugesandten Artikel in dieser Sprache in das Jahrbuch aufzunehmen. Ich bitte Sie
also recht angelegentlich dahin zu wirken, dass unsre Gesellschaft in England moeglichst umfassende Theilnahme findet.
Daß Sie in Deutschland waren und mir so nahe, ohne daß ich Sie gesehen, ist mir sehr schmerzlich gewesen. Die Veteranen unter den deutschen
Dantefreunden sind Einer nach dem andren, aber alle mehr als achtzigjaehrig, abgeschieden. Zuerst Aug. Wilh. Schlegel, dann Kannegießer und
Schloßer. Neuerdings Goeschel, Abecken und unser lieber Blanc. Jetzt
moechten Scolari und Salv. Betti die aeltesten unserer Zunft seyn. Ich bin
aber auch schon on the wrong side of sixty, und wir leben ja Alle del viver
ch'e un correre alla morte. — Moechte Ihre Reise auf den Continent Ihnen
fuer Ihre Studien recht ergiebig und Ihrer Gesundheit recht zutraeglich gewesen seyn, damit Sie alle Ihre schoenen Plaene fuer Dante-Erlaeuterung
vollstaendig ausfuehren koennen. Leben Sie wohl und bleiben Sie mir
freundlich gesinnt. Ich sende Ihnen meine Photographie 47 und bitte um
die Ihrige.
Carl Witte
Barlow's reply, dated 20 November 1867 (and, like all his subsequent
letters, headed 11 Church Yard Row, Newington Butts, Surrey, his
h o m e address), runs:
My dear Professor Witte,
Many thanks for Your very kind and flattering letter which I found on
my arrival at home only a few days ago. I feel much honoured by being
elected an Honorary Member der Deutschen Dante-Gesellschaft, and beg
to return You my best thanks on the occasion [ . . . ] . I was in Wien when
47
Not to be found in BPUCL, perhaps because, like Witte's letter to Panizzi, framed and separated from the papers by Barlow himself.
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the last meeting took place. I have looked over the first volume of the
Jahrbuch [ . . . ] . In this there is a paper by Geheimrath Goeschell „Wer that
aus Furcht den großen Rücktritt?" in which he seems to be quite unconscious of my long published essay on this subject, which has recently
been translated into Italian and published at Naples 48 .1 believe You have
a copy of it; it was first printed in 1862.1 had a conference at Dresden on
this subject with the King, who differed from me, and held that the shade
was that of Pope Celestin. I did not come near Halle in my German Tour,
or I should most certainly have rushed to embrace You. Thanks for the
Photograph. How Dantesque You look! It would almost seem that by
pondering over the words and sentiments of Dante, Your features have
taken the character and expression of his. It struck me there was a
marvellous resemblance. There is something of the same expression in the
countenance of King John. I have not yet attained to the family likeness,
as You will see by the enclosed Photograph, but I hold the book, although
only a small pocket edition; that laughing tendency which I inherit from
my deceased mother destroys all attempts at looking Dantesquely
dignified. I was much pleased with Dr Mussafia, and he kindly rendered
me courteous service in Vienna. By the by did I send You my account of
the Dante Festivals at Florence & Ravenna 49 ? If I did not, I will, through
my booksellers. With this letter I shall post a copy of the Athenaeum containing my paper on Le cinque spade. Our poor old friend Vogel v. Vögelstein was unwell when I was at Munich. I called at his house, but he had
gone to bed indisposed, as his attendant said 50 .
What You say about old stagers, Dantophilists especially, touches me,
for I also am on the wrong side of sixty, though not very far. The result
of my Dante publications in England has been so unsatisfactory that I do
not purpose to publish any more. All the expense of printing, publishing,
48
Barlow overlooks the words .gestorben 23. Sept. 1861' at the head of
Goeschel's essay {DDJ, 1, p. 103) which show that it antedates his own II gran
rifiuto, London 1862 (Italian translation by G. Guiscardi, Naples 1864).
49
The Sixth Centenary Festivals of Dante Allighieri in Florence and at
Ravenna. By a Representative, London 1866. Again, Barlow overlooks the
fact that Witte quotes the work in DDJ, 1, p. 63, although Witte, in his letter
of 4 October, had pointed out that reference to him. A copy of the work is
to be found at BNUS, Cd. 105887.
50
Vogel had given Witte a somewhat different account, saying that Barlow
,ist neulich hier durch geeilt und hat sich leider durch meinen Katharr
abhalten lassen zu mir ins Zimmer zu kommen' (letter of 29 October, in DDJ,
19, p. 91).
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and advertizing has to come out of my pocket, which is by no means a
deep one, and all that I get in return from London Reviewers is abuse. If
the books made their way in the world I should not so much mind this,
but the mode of doing business among our English publishers is to keep
all the copies at home [ . . . ] .
I procured a copy to day of Your German Version of the Poem. I wish
I were a German scholar to be able to appreciate Your labours. I am told
the translation is excellent, and am fully persuaded that it must be.
[Williams and Norgate, Barlow's publishers, offer to transmit the subscriptions of English members of the German Dante Society.]
I am a little curious to learn who were the other two honorary members
elected. The American one I think I can guess, not so the Italian.
Next to the happiness of seeing Yourself, is the pleasure I derive from
contemplating Your portrait. Me thinks You look a little changed from
that well-remembered time when, in the name of Dante Allighieri, You
received me with all the kindness and empressement of a brother and gave
me that Dante diploma, in the shape of a letter to Mr Panizzi, which I
could only show him and that hangs up framed in my library. God bless
You! The heart never grows old however the face may alter. May many,
many happy years still be Yours.
Your affectionate and obliged Friend
H.C. Barlow
The Professor Karl Witte
P.S. I have many other things to tell You about, but must reserve them for
a future occasion. Does the Society purpose to collect a Library of Dante
works? If so I will direct that mine be sent. „Dio sia con voi"!
To this missive Witte responded in the following terms:
Pregiatissimo Signore ed amico!
La graditissima Vostra del giorno 20. prossimo decorso dice: I wish I
were a German scholar. Suppongo però che Vi sarà più commodo se Vi
scrivo in italiano che se continuo di servirmi del proprio mio idioma. In
primo luogo dunque Vi ringrazio del Vostro ritratto al quale assegnai
subito un posto distinto nel mio Album di Dantofili 51 . Lo trovo proprio
51
The album is now in the possession of Dr Hans Haupt of Hamburg, to
whom I am most grateful for supplying me with a copy of Barlow's
photograph. For the ,gran quadro del nostro Vogel' see DDJ, 19, p. 86, 22,
p. 168, and 25, p. 140.
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identico con quello nel gran quadro del nostro Vogel. Conservatevi dunque, benché la Vostra barba, lunga poco meno di quella di Catone, mi sembri non solamente „di pel bianco mista", e procuratemi '1 piacere di riabbracciarvi di qua della Valle di Giosaffat. Vi ringrazio inoltre del Vostro
articolo sulle „cinque spade". Mi avete convinto che non si tratta, come
credevo finora, di un numero indeterminato, ma non posso decidermi a
riferire le cinque spade a quelle degli uccisori del Buondelmonti. Crederei
invece che quell'una e quelle cinque corrispondano al „quinto" del verso
48. Cento spade di quel tempo antico e puro tagliavano più e meglio che
cinquecento della popolazione mista ai tempi di Dante che non si
vergognava di porre il giglio a ritroso.
Delle cose Vostre, pur troppo, mi mancano non poche. Oltre agli eccellenti „Contributions", frutto di un assiduo studio al quale sono debitore
di ben molte informazioni, posseggo l'opuscolo sopra Francesca da
Rimini, „the sixth centenary", e due articoli dell'Athenaeum „Dante's
door" e „Francesca da R." Di più mi mandaste alcuni giornali nei quali
con somma cortesia parlate di cose mie. Mi raccomando dunque se potete
mandarmi altri Vostri lavori, i quali, ancora che siano di piccola mole sempre mi riesciranno ben grati.
L'articolo del povero Goeschel sopra „Colui che fece per viltà lo gran
rifiuto" è d'un interesse per così dire politico-storico. All'epoca dei grandi
movimenti che nel 1848 sconvolgevano la Prussia il Goeschel era
Presidente del „Consistorio", cioè dell'autorità suprema pegli affari ecclesiastici nella nostra Provincia. Avendo nome di gran reazionario
(codino) e di pietista (in Italia si direbbe Giansenista) e temendo i furori
del ,,mob" rinunziò al suo posto e mutò domicilio. Questo, in un momento
dove altri suoi pari si credevano in dovere di morir sulla breccia,
naturalmente gli fu apposto per viltà, e sembra certissimo che in quell'articolo, volendo difendere quel che aveva fatto egli, difese Celestino V. Se trovaste occasione di parlar del nostro „Jahrbuch" in qualche giornale
inglese, forse potreste giudicarlo opportuno di profittare di quell'aneddoto. - L'offerta del Sign. Williams è la benvenuta, ma bisognerebbe procurarsi qualche invito ai Dantofili della Vostra patria. Volevo unir alla
presente una copia dei nostri statuti, ma li trovate belli che stampati nel
„Jahrbuch". Vi prego dunque di avere a cuore gli interessi della nostra
società che si onora di avervi per uno de' suoi. Il meglio sarebbe se ci mandaste qualche Vostro articoletto (naturalmente in inglese) pel secondo
volume del Jahrbuch col quale fra breve si andrà alle stampe.
I due socj onoraj che furono nominati con Voi sono il Longfellow e lo
Scolari. - Lo trovareste forse ben fatto se mandassi ai bibliotecarj del
British Museum, della Bodleian e della libreria di Cambridge il Jahrbuch,
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una copia per ciascuno? In ogni modo Vi prego d'indicarmi i nomi di
questi tre personaggi, perchè, anche astrazione fatta di questo regalo,
dovrei per certe ricerche rivolgermi ad essi.
Attualmente si sta stampando una raccolta de' miei articoletti sopra
Dante, sparsi dal 1824. a questa parte in un bel numero di giornali. Il mio
librajo volendo aggiunger un fregio a quella pubblicazione bramerebbe di
metterci in faccia del frontispizio il ritratto del poeta creduto di Giotto.
Delle tante incisioni e litografie che ne furono fatte, non mi soddisfa che
quella inserita nel bel libretto di Eliott Norton: „The original portraits of
Dante". Esso non è che la ripetizione della cromo-litografia fatta sotto gli
auspizj dell'„Arundel Society". Non so se siate in qualche relazione con
quella dotta società di antica fama, ma Vi sarei ben grato se poteste procurarmi un esemplare di quella litografia. „Dulcius ex ipso fonte hauriuntur aquae", ed anche il mio librajo, benché bramosissimo di far incidere
il ritratto, preferirebbe di molto l'originale inglese alla copia americana 52 .
Se inoltre Vi fusse un ritratto fotografico di fu Myl'd Vernon, Vi sarei
grato, se me lo favoriste per il mio Album Dantesco. — Chiudo colle Vostre
parole che pienamente corrispondono al mio modo di sentire: The heart
never grows old, however the face may alter. May many, many happy years
still be Yours! Con sincera amicizia Vostro affezionatissimo
Carlo Witte
Halle 1867. Die. 24.
A happy Christmas and a happy new year!
Barlow's reply of 31 December, again in somewhat abridged form,
goes as follows:
My dear Professor
Ere the old Year is quite run out, let me reciprocate the good wishes of
your very kind letter, and wish you a happy New Year and many of them.
It is a great joy to me at all times to see your hand writing, and now I can
couple the characters of the hand with the Dantesque expression of the
countenance and bring you almost in propria persona before me. In a con52
Witte also corresponded in this connection with Kirkup, who replied at
length (BNUS, MS 2529, ff. 292-95, 31 March 1868), repeating the wellknown story of the discovery of the Bargello portrait and his execution of the
tracing from which the Arundel Society print was made. The portrait was
discussed at length by T. Paur in DDJ, 2, pp. 261-330. Its identification as
a portrait of Dante is left all but untenable by E.H. Gombrich,,Giotto's portrait of Dante?', The Burlington Magazine, 121 (1978), pp. 471-83.
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spicuous place stands your handsome volume of the New Translation
which seems to me to combine a most literal sense with harmonious and
noble verse revealing the lofty Poet no less than the admirable critic.
You have achieved a fame and reputation which does honour to Germany, and in founding the German Society of Dante have laid the foundation of a moral and political union with Italy which cannot fail, I think,
to realize in time, perhaps not far distant, the aspirations of poetic genius
and the conceptions of the far-seeing pictorial mind. Overbeck, in his picture at Munich 53 , has anticipated this union, and represented Germany
as coming to the assistance of her afflicted sister. It has often occurred to
me that much of the love which the natives of Germany and England have
for Italy is owing to their admiration for her immortal Poet.
Now let me turn to many little matters mentioned in your last. I will send
to you through my publishers, Williams and Norgate, a copy of the Dante
Festivals at Florence and Ravenna, and more brochures of mine which you
have not yet received. A Photograph of the late much lamented Lord Vernon it is not in my power to procure, at least not at this moment [ . . . ] .
I don't know if the Arundel Society still possess copies of the Giotto portrait of Dante, but will inquire [. . .]. I lately discovered a portrait of Dante,
a fancy portrait, by Masaccio in the cabinet of drawings at Munich. It is
a very noble one doing full justice to the patriot and the poet. Could you
procure a photograph of this it would be a novelty [. . .]. The head which
the Florentine Authorities brought forward at the Festival, and found as
a sketch in the Dante Codice Riccardiano No. 1040, is a libel on the Poet.
You will find it noticed, along with two other portraits, at p. 49 of the
„Festivals"54. [. . .]
I am very proud indeed to enter the select German Dante-Society in
company with my much esteemed and honored friend the Cav. Scolari. Of
Longfellow I know nothing personally. He has quoted my book in various
places in his notes to his new translation, which I was told by an American
friend was the resumé, so to speak, of the deliberations of a circle of Dante
students in America. I think it the best translation which we have of the
entire poem, but the Paradise is not equal to the other two cantiche 55 .
53
J.F. Overbeck, .Italia und Germania', Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
It is there said to represent the Poet ,as a perfect fright'. Its choice, in
1864, as the most authentic portrait of Dante provoked passionate dissent in
many quarters (cf. R. T. Holbrook, Portraits of Dante from Giotto to
Raphael, London 1911, p. 67).
55
Barlow is here repeating the gist of three reviews (one for each cantica)
contributed to The Athenaeum, Nos 2064, 2070 and 2076 (18 May, 29 June
and 10 August 1867).
54
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[There follow the names of the librarians requested by Witte, and also that
of the Arundel Society Secretary.] And now God bless you, my dear
Friend, and send you many many happy years.
Yours very sincerely,
H.C. Barlow
What caught Witte's interest in this letter was clearly the information about the Munich drawing, for he lost no time in obtaining a
photograph of it and deciding to use it as the frontispiece of the second
volume of the Jahrbuch*6. Barlow meanwhile set to work on the article requested for the volume, and on 15 September 1868 sent it with
a copy of his autobiographical .memoir' 57 . Before long he was also able
to satisfy Witte's desire for a portrait of Lord Vernon, having obtained
a photograph from Vernon's widow while touring in the neighbourhood of Sudbury Hall (Derbyshire), seat of the Vernons 58 . During the
same period Witte too had been travelling: making a trip to Italy that
has been called ,eine Triumphreise' and which gave him the assurance
that his efforts to promote the strict scholarly study and religious interpretation of Dante's works had not been in vain 59 . In Florence (13
September 1868) he was an honoured guest of the Crusca Academy.
56
On 22 April 1868 he wrote to von Reumont: ,Der Ihnen wol auch bekannte Dr. Barlow in London machte mich vor ein Paar Monaten brieflich auf ein
angeblich von Masaccio herrührendes Dantebildniß unter den Münchner
Handzeichnungen aufmerksam. Durch E. Försters Gefälligkeit erhielt ich
eine Photographie davon, die mir so sehr zusagt, daß ich glaube, das Bild wird
eine willkommene Beigabe für den zweiten Band des Jahrbuchs werden'
(UBB, S1068, No. 157, summarized in DDJ, 24, p. 81). The portrait (now No.
2147 in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung and attributed to Bronzino) was
used as frontispiece not only for the Jahrbuch but also for the second vol.
of Witte's Dante-Forschungen. In neither place does Barlow receive credit for
drawing attention to it.
57
A BriefMemoir of Henry Clark Barlow, M.D., F.G.S., London 1868. ,The
Matilda of Dante', DDJ, 2, pp. 251-59. The article had been anticipated in
The Athenaeum, No. 2128, 8 August 1868. A brief accompanying letter of
15 September (BNUS, MS 2529, f. 28) is here omitted.
58
A short letter of 9 November 1868 (BNUS, MS 2529, f. 29), which accompanied the photograph, is omitted.
59
H. Witte, H. Haupt, Karl Witte cit., p. 226. For his experiences in
Florence and Rome, ib., pp. 226—32.
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In Rome he had an audience with Pope Pius IX and went to Frascati
at the invitation of the now blind Michelangelo Caetani, with whom
he spent one of the happiest moments he had ever experienced in
Italy 60 .
While together they evidently remembered absent friends, including
Barlow, who noted the fact with some satisfaction in his next letter,
dated 18 April 1869 and written in acknowledgment of the Jahrbuch,
Vol. 2, Witte's Dante-Forschungen, Vol. 1, and a now regrettably missing letter of 10 January delivered to Barlow by Eduard Boehmer 61 ,
who had recently been in England:
My dear Professor,
Many thanks for your kind and interesting letter which I received
through Prof. Boehmer, and many thanks also for the present of your nice
new volume „Dante Forschungen. Altes und Neues", which came to me
along with the „Jahrbuch der Deutschen [Dante]-Gesellschaft", containing my paper on Matilda which I feel much gratified and flattered by the
insertion of among the learned contributions which make up the volume.
I am also pleased to see dear old Dante's nose as designed and drawn
by Masaccio, from the cabinet of drawings at Munich. I should like to
know the history of this drawing, whether it had ever been in the portfolio
of Raphael, and had suggested the head in the Vatican, which has the same
nose and chin, or nearly so [...].
I felt much honoured by the kind remembrance of me at Rome, and
especially on the occasion of your visit to Frascati with the amiable and
60
The invitation survives as BNUS, MS 2529, f. 138. Witte later reported
to von Reumont: ,Don Michel-Angelo war in Frascati. Ich folgte seiner
Einladung, die ich schon am Tage nach meiner Ankunft erhielt. Ich fand ihn
in sein trauriges Schicksal recht wenig ergeben; Frau und Tochter (Ersilia) leidend. Doch flammte er bald hell auf, und die sechs Stunden, die ich mit ihm
verbrachte gehörn zu meinen schönsten in Italien' (UBB, S1068, No. 159, 17
October 1868). Caetani, for his part, recorded his enjoyment of the encounter
in a letter of 8 October to G.B. Giuliani (who had been proclaimed ,alto
Primopilo della Divina Commedia', and like Barlow fondly remembered, by
the two friends): see Carteggio dantesco del Duca di Sermoneta, ed. A. De
Gubernatis, Milan 1883, pp. 75-76.
61
The date is inferred from Barlow's letter of 13 December 1871 below. The
only vestige of Boehmer's contacts with Barlow to have survived among the
latter's papers is a letter of 17 November 1868 (BPUCL, 170).
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eminent Dantophilist, the Duca di Sermonetta, and his family. You must
have been gratified by your presentation to the kind hearted and excellent
Pontiff. It is many years (1855) since I saw the good old man and participated in his general benediction, but I hope yet to see him again before
becoming a shade. [. . .]
We have nothing in the Dante way doing here. But I may mention that
a gentleman of Bath, a Mr David Johnston, a great lover of Dante, has
printed a very good English version as a present to his friends to encourage
them in the study and admiration of the immortal poem [...]. I have forwarded a notice of it to the Athenaeum 62 , and, if printed, will send you
a copy of the periodical [...]. A Codice 63 has recently been submitted to
me from the Library of the Rev. Thomas Corser. The bookseller Quaritch
bought it at a sale of a portion of the Rev. Gentleman's books. [There then
follows a detailed description of the manuscript.] I have now, my dear Professor, tired out your patience, and almost consumed my own eyes which
I regret to say are very indifferent, almost worn out and growing very dim.
God bless you! Remember me kindly to Prof. Boehmer, and believe me
ever
yours most sincerely
H.C. Barlow
This was followed a month later (12 May) by a shorter missive noting
the death of Vogel but occasioned by a publishing event of some moment:
My dear Professor,
When I last wrote to you I had not seen in the Jahr Book 64 that our
worthy old friend Vogel v. Vogelstein had gone to keep Dante company.
I hope that you and I may not soon have to follow him, but for myself
I feel I am not what I was. [. . .]
The late Lord Vernon's great work in three vols folio on the Inferno has
at length appeared. The third volume consists of plates, with a memoir.
I look upon it as the most noble literary monument ever raised in any country to the memory of Dante. It has been at least thirty years in hand. Boone
62
The Athenaeum, No. 2176, 10 July 1869.
It was subsequently acquired by the British Museum, where it became
Egerton 2085. Barlow went on to publish a description of it in The
Athenaeum, No. 2180, 7 August 1869.
64
DDJ, 2, carries (pp. 407-408) Witte's short obituary of Vogel, who had
died on 4 March 1868.
63
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of Bond Street has the work to dispense, and he told me yesterday that
he believed a copy would be presented to you [...].
[. . .] Would you like to have a critical notice and analysis of Lord Vernon's work for the Jahr Book? If so would you kindly let me know at once,
as my stay in town is now rather short: I hope in a couple of months to
get away to the Tyrol and Northern Italy. God bless you my dear Professor.
Remember me kindly to your brother Professor, Prof. Boehmer, and
believe me ever
yours affectionately
H.C. Barlow
The offer of a .critical notice' of Vernon's work apparently went
unheeded, but Barlow was soon to find ample scope for expressing his
admiration in an article written for the Athenaeum (No. 2210,5 March
1870) and in the volume On the Vernon Dante, with other dissertations
(1870), a copy of which reached Witte 65 . In the same year he also
despatched, with his ,kind regards', his modest exercise in collation:
Testi di tre canti della Divina Commedia tratti da codici conservati
nella biblioteca del Museo Britannico (1870) 66 . When he next wrote,
towards the end of 1871 (13 December), it was merely to report
miscellaneous items of Dante news:
My dear Professor,
It is many a long day since I had the felicity to hear from you, or the
pleasure myself of writing to you. Since January 10. 1869 is the date of
your last, and when I replied to it was not much later. I have been since
then for nearly a year in Italy, and the last winter and spring I spent at
Naples. I had an idea of reprinting the Naples Edition of the Divina Commedia of 1477 [. . .]. I found, however, that the bookseller Delkin was not
disposed to take part in the matter and so it fell to the ground. The text
has so many typographical errors in it, that alone it would be of little value;
in connection with the other four it might be of considerable value, so I
copied out about 700 readings, and made a MS of these and the readings
from Lord Vernon's Edition of the four. Some day I hope to print it
privately.
65
BNUS, Cd. 105888. Witte's copy of the Vernon Inferno is now BNUS,
Cd. 20. A letter of 28 October 1870, from the bookseller Boone, informing
him that a copy of the work,awaits your disposal' is at BNUS, MS 2529, f. 112.
66
BNUS, Cd. 105662.
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I am much pleased with the Jahrbuch this year. The elegant photograph
of Dante lying in state at Ravenna is very beautiful and very correct [...].
Have you looked over the new Commentary of Gregorio da Siena of
Naples? [. . .] Alas for our poor friend the Duke at Rome! I saw him two
or three times, now become a political character, and wish with all my
heart and soul he could have seen me. I do not like Rome so much as I
used to do: perhaps this is wrong, but I loved the Sacred City, not so the
political one. It is a grand event, however, the consummation of Dante's
political creed, and the realizing of his prophetic hopes and views.
We have in London nearly finished with the sale by public auction of
the Library of our friend Seymour, now Baron, Kirkup. I bought some
books but could not afford Codici. I purchased, by an urgent desire to bid
above all others, the volume of your new text in quarto, with some notes
by our friend as a memorial of love for you and for him. How long I may
possess it Heaven only knows: not long perhaps, when it will go with my
other Dante books to the Library of University College, where I have by
will founded, or shall found, a readership of Dante 67 . [Barlow then gives
details of the prices fetched in the sale by the six MSS, and some early
editions, of the Divina Commedia, before going on to outline the projected article ,Dante and Naples' later published in the Athenaeum6*.]
Remember me kindly to Prof. Boehmer: he will be sorry to hear that my
dear Frances Pering69 died in Jamaica in the latter part of last year. He
knew her at Montpelier. Adieu! Dio vi conservi per molti anni!
Ever most sincerely yours
H.C. Barlow
Witte's reply was written after a lapse of almost nine months:
Pregiatissimo Signore ed amico
Bagni di Bormio 3 Sett. 1873.
È pur troppo vero, che da anni ed anni io non vi scrissi più; ma
questi anni furono per me anni di tristissime peripezie e non che dolermi
67
The will by which he set up the Dante Lectureship dates from 1867.
Kirkup had been induced to part with his library by the spiritualist David
Home. His copy of Witte's edition of the Comedy does not now figure among
the books bequeathed by Barlow to University College.
68
Witte's copy is now BNUS, Cd. 10553 (.Schriften iiber Dante', XIII, 7).
69
Some fragments of correspondence (1863 and 1870) relating to Barlow's
friendship with this otherwise unknown person survive at BPUCL, 28/2 and
229.
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di quella vacillante salute che mi rimase, mi maraviglio di trovarmi tuttora
frai viventi. Una funestissima malattia condusse il mio primogenito,
giovane di altissime speranze, amato e rispettato si può dire da tutti,
marito e padre di famiglia felicissimo, dalla catedra con sommo onore da
lui occupata all'asilo dei maniaci, dove oramai da più di due anni è rinchiuso. Da più di un anno la mia salute è andata peggiorando. Mali nervosi
ed artritici, che mi tormentano quasi continuamente, mi condussero a
questa terma alcalina, situata all'elevazione di quasi 1300. metri. Dovendo
terminare fra pochi giorni la mia cura, posso dir ammigliorato il mio stato
di salute, ma ben piccola è la speranza di ricuperare, non dico la pristina
salute, ma pur quella che mi era restata nell'autunno dell'anno passato.
Con tutto questo ho cercato di applicarmi quanto più potevo agli studi
dall'uno e dall'altro di noi prediletti. Due delle opere minori di Dante, la
Monarchia e la Vita Nuova, da me con somma diligenza nel testo ricorrette, e corredate di note interpretative furono, prima della mia partenza
consegnate allo stampatore, e vedranno la luce nel corso di questo inverno.
Sarei contento, se vivessi per vedere tutte le vostre opere relative a Dante
riunite insieme. È veramente un peccato che tanti articoli pieni d'ingegno
e di dottrina, abbiano a perdersi nei diversi giornali in cui furono stampati.
Posso dire che la mia impresa di raccogliere in tal modo le mie cose sparse
in non so quanti luoghi fu generalmente applaudita, e vi aggiungo che mi
rincrebbe di non leggerne in qualche giornale il vostro giudizio, che mai
sempre fu molto indulgente per le mie pubblicazioni 70 .
Vado per qualche giorno a Firenze, e cercherò di vedere il nostro amico
Seymour-Kirkup. Povero vecchio che ha dovuto vivere tanto per privarsi
dei diletti suoi libri. Non ebbi il catalogo, più volte da me desiderato, che
dopo terminato l'incanto, dimodoché la tentazione di acquistarne qualche
cosa, non poteva venirmi nemmeno. Del resto vi ringrazio dei pochi cenni
che mi faceste sui prezzi ai quali alcuni di quei libri furono venduti. Se si
trovasse modo di farmi sapere i prezzi ottenuti pei numeri notati sul foglio
qui acchiuso 71 , mi sarebbe cosa ben grata, e non mancherei di restituire
immediatamente la spesa, che ne potesse essere cagionata.
Quantunque io abbia tardato a scrivervi, vi prego di non creder per
questo scemata di un attimo la somma stima e l'affezione con cui sono
Tbtto vostro
Carlo Witte
70
As Witte must have known, his Dante-Forschungen had been attentively
reviewed by H.F. Tozer (later a founder-member of the Oxford Dante Society)
in The Academy, 12 March 1870: copy at BNUS, Cd. 10553 (.Schriften über
Dante', XIII, 6).
71
For completeness' sake, the list of lot numbers (mainly editions of the
Comedy) runs as follows: 1182,1183,1186,1188,1190-1192,1194-1196,1198,
1200-1207, 1209-1213, 1215.
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With this letter the correspondence begins to take on an increasingly
personal and pathetic tone as the two friends experience age, illness
and misfortune, and Barlow's reply (4 November 1872) is notable for
its sense of declining powers and prosperity and its warmth of affection for ,Dante friends':
My dear Professor Witte,
I was delighted and rejoiced at the sight once more of your beautiful
and exquisite hand writing when your kind letter was placed before me,
but when I had opened it and read of your suffering and tribulation, my
joy was turned into sorrow, and my delight into mourning. Truly I am
greatly grieved to hear of your personal and family affliction, and most
sincerely hope that better prospects are looming in the distance, and that
yourself, benefited in health by your stay at the Baths of Bormio, will still
long continue to enlighten and delight the world of Dantophilists with
your erudite and indefatigable literary labours.
I regretted that my ignorance of the German language, save what a
wayfarer may require on his journey, and the guest at a Thble d'Hotel
manage to pass muster with, along with the change in the Editorship of
the Athenaeum, precluded me from writing an article on your last work
in that periodical. [. . .]
I greatly fear that my papers in the Athenaeum, and elsewhere, will
never be gathered into a volume. It is not in my power to print them, and
my publishers will not take the work into their own hands. My income
within the last few years has been reduced to less than half what it was,
by having to give up my house property, the lease of 99 years having expired, so that it was only by drawing on the fonds of my other source of
revenue that I could find a hundred pounds or so occasionally for printing
and travelling; but now the increase of everything in price, necessaries and
luxuries, is so great, that I am constrained to cover my ordinary expences
in the same way. I have many manuscripts, the labours of years, which
would make a literary fortune for their author if printed, but the
mercenary publishers will have nothing to do with them. In the mean time
my sight is failing fast, my zeal and ardour in the field are cooling down,
the fire of life is growing feeble, though my love for Dante never fails and
never will till this frail heart of mine shall beat no more for ever. Our
friends are dropping off. The dear old Cav. Scolari, quasi per me un vero
dolce padre, is no more 72 . Vogel v. Vogelstein, to whose beloved memory
72
Barlow had received the news of Filippo Scolari's death (March 1872)
in a letter from Saverio Scolari of 30 June (BPUCL, 239).
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I owe a debt of eternal gratitude, for he it was who recommended me to
You, has passed some time ago. Our old friend Kirkup cannot endure
much longer, I fear every day to hear of his decease — The author of „An
Introduction to the Study of Dante", lately published 73 , has even killed
him already in his preface dated July, calling him „the late Mr Kirkup of
Florence", but the brave old Cavalier still lives: at least, in September, when
I heard that you called upon him, he was alive and well. The copy of your
improved text which was once in dear old Kirkup's library is now in mine,
and is a double treasure to me, from his pencil notes and markings. I wish
Yourself and Scarabelli were on better terms. He is, unfortunately for
himself, of a somewhat irascible temper, and apt to take umbrage where
none was meant. He is also too free with his tongue and his pen, but he
is a generous soul, and is devoted, as you well know, to the elucidation and
correction of the text of Dante. The third volume of his Dante de' XX will
probably be finished by February [...]; I hope it may be dedicated to You
as the crowning glory of that publication 74 [ . . . ] .
I am looking forward to your new edition of the Vita Nuova and the
Monorchia with great anticipated satisfaction. [. . .] I trust you will advocate the spirituality of Beatrice. My first preceptor in Dante was Centofanti 75 , and he convinced me what Beatrice meant. I have recently
printed a list of my Dante papers, a copy of which I will send to you 76 .
And now my dear Friend, God bless you. If in this World we should not
meet again - I trust we may - we shall at least meet in the Paradise of
Dante, and in the presence of the Altissimo Poeta behold our friends.
There are many questions I should like to ask you, but cannot do so now.
73
J.A. Symonds, An Introduction to the Study of Dante, London 1872,
p. iii. Kirkup (already dubbed .this old boy' in 1847 by Witte: DDJ, 24, p. 26)
was to live until 1880.
74
Scarabelli had dedicated the first volume of the edition to Barlow, who
followed the work's progress in The Athenaeum (Nos 2199, 2226, 2297, 2315
and 2380,1869-73) and later dedicated his own Sei cento lezioni to Scarabelli.
The sentiments expressed here by Barlow seem wishful in view of earlier
animosity between Witte and the Italian scholar (cf. DDJ, 1, p. 279-330).
75
The Catholic progressive Silvestro Centofanti (1794-1880, for whom see
Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 23) gave popular, politically-motivated
lectures on Dante at Pisa from 1837 to 1848. In 1845, when Barlow attended
them, he had .taken as his textbook the Vita Nuova' (A Brief Memoir cit.,
p. 8), and Barlow's diary (BPUCL, 145) contains notes on Beatrice made at
that time (cf. n. 17 above).
76
BNUS, Cd. 105889.
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I find your quarto invaluable. Wishing you the perfect renewal of your
health, and the blessedness of that Peace which the World cannot give77,
I remain
ever yours devotedly
H.C. Barlow
I subjoin the list of prices which you wished for. 78
Barlow was to write two more letters, the first (which we omit) dated
24 August 1875 and accompanying a copy of his Sei cento leziorti
(1875) 79 , the other one (3 March 1876) announcing what he rightly
foresaw would be his last visit to Germany and sending a characteristic
medley of news and views:
My dear Professor Witte,
It is so long since I have seen, or heard from, you that I have become
very uneasy, and very anxious to know how you are going on; I have had
some thoughts of paying you a visit, if possible, this summer, or autumn,
when I purpose, d.v., to visit Germany, probably for the last time, for my
pilgrimage in this world is drawing to a close, and though I do hope to
be spared a few short years to come in order that I may finish and prepare
for the press one or two works in reference to the Divina Commedia, an
Historical Hand Book 80 , a Word Book and a brief commentary, and, if
possible, a revised edition of my „Contributions", yet I much fear that it
will happen to me, as it has done to many others, that I shall be summoned
hence before I am quite ready. We all owe you a debt of gratitude for your
very admirable edition of the ,,De Monarchia", printed at Wien and
published 1874 [...]. It is most carefully edited [...], and so admirably
printed that it is a pleasure to read it. I wish I could say as much of
Giuliani's new edition of the „Convito", which I was much gratified to find
77
The phrase is adapted from the Anglican liturgy's .Second Collect at
Evening Prayer', which is itself translated from the Sarum breviary: ,Deus a
quo sancta desideria, recta consilia et justa sunt opera: da servis tuis illam
quam mundus dare non potest pacem' (cf. F. Procter, W.H. Frere, A New
History of the Book of Common Prayer, London 1958, p. 403).
78
We omit the list, BNUS, MS 2529, f. 38v.
79
BNUS, Cd. 10491. The accompanying letter is MS 2529, ff. 39-40.
80
Virtually ready for the press at Barlow's death (BPUCL, 17/1) as was
the Word Book (18/1). One of the MS commentaries (47 and 48) dates from
1873—76, work on the projected new edition of the Contributions from 1873.
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he had dedicated to you. The comment is in so small and bad a type that
I [. . .] cannot read it at all. [. . .] I once thought of translating the Convito 81, but there are matters in it scarcely suited to modern English readers.
It has always been a favourite study with me, and my copy [. . .] is much
underlined and annotated. Have you not published an edition of the
work? If not, perhaps you will: I know very little of what is going on in
the world of Letters. [Barlow then passes to the interpretation of
Purgatorio XXXII, 142-47, proposing that the seven heads referred to
should be seen as representing the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.]82
In the autumn I made a tour, after upwards of thirty years, through the
picture galleries and museums of Belgium and Holland, and made some
inquiries about Guizzante (Inf. XV. 4). I think I shall be able to show that
commentators hitherto have been wrong in their explanation of this.
[. . .] I must now conclude. I hope you have been better of late than you
were when last I had the pleasure of hearing from you, and with my ever
grateful and kindest regards, believe me, most sincerely
your affectionate Friend
H.C. Barlow
The correspondence ends with a letter written on black-edged
notepaper:
Pregiatissimo amico!
Halle 1876. Marzo 6.
Ibtti i miei corrispondenti si lagnano, e ben a ragione, dell'ostinato mio
silenzio. Devo confessare che questa pigrizia nel carteggio è un vizio
antico; ma nel corso di questi ultimi anni merito di certo maggiore scusa
che prima. Le mie forze, tanto fisiche che mentali, vanno scemando pur
troppo sensibilmente, e lo stato della mia salute progredisce di male in
peggio. Dal 1871. in poi soffro assai di gotta, e le acque termali che presi
reiteratamente, non mi sollevarono che poco. L'anno scorso mi sopravvenne un ernia inguinale che m'incommoda assai più che si crederebbe.
Non passo un giorno senza dolori, che alle volte sono fortissimi, e che mi
81
As announced in the 1859 propectus. Fragments of translation and introductory material survive at BPUCL, 28/1 and 2.
82
The theory appears to have been suggested to Barlow by reading De
Monorchia in Witte's edition: in his copy, alongside Dante's reference to the
electors in III, 16, he pencilled a cross-reference to ,the heads round the carro',
while the letter cites the Monorchia passage in support of the interpretation
it puts forward. His copy of the edition is now University College Library,
DANTE DD 333 (1874).
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vengono particolarmente, se per qualche tempo sto seduto. Così i miei
lavori letterarj e scientifici sono ridotti quasi al zero.
Voi mi parlate della Monarchia pubblicata a Vienna. È una fatica continuata per un bel numero di anni. Se un Vostro compatriota 83 fosse stato
meno spilorcio nel permesso di confrontare un suo testo a penna il libro
sarebbe riuscito anche meno imperfetto. Leggete di grazia il ragguaglio che
se ne dà a p. XV.—XVIII. dei prolegomeni, e se non possedeste la mia edizione, scrivetemelo che troverò modo di mandarvene una copia. Quel
modo di agire del Sign. Fenwick mi dispiacque tanto più, quanto esso mi
pare più in contrasto col carattere nobile e liberale che conosco nei Vostri
connazionali.
Vi spedisco coll'istesso convoglio la mia edizioncina della Vita Nuova;
vedo però con gran rammarico dall'ultimo Vostro foglio ch'essa non potrà
servirvi gran fatto, essendo stampata in caratteri molto più minuti del
Convivio del nostro Giuliani. In ogni modo leggibili Vi saranno i Prolegomeni che Vi daranno un'idea dei principj sui quali l'edizione fu
eseguita. Vedrete dalle ultime righe di quell'introduzione che non ho abbandonato ancora il pensiero di stampare anche il Convivio; ma sarà come
dite Voi: „1 fear that it will happen to me, as it has done to many others,
that I shall be summoned hence before I am quite ready". I miei studj sul
Convivio datano da più di cinquant'anni.
La terza edizione della Div. Comm. tradotta da me in tedesco è sotto
ai torchi, e meglio di due terzi sono già finiti. Ritoccai con diligenza il
testo, ed ampliai almeno della metà il commento.
Una pubblicazione di sommo interesse pei Studj Danteschi è la nuova
edizione della Div. Comm. coi commenti dello Scartazzini, oriundo dalla
valle Bregaglia nel Cantone dei Grigioni, che finora comprende l'Inferno
e '1 Purgatorio. Vi si trovano registrate le opinioni della gran maggioranza
di tutti gli autori che mai illustrarono il nostro poeta. Non occorre dirvi
che anche i Vostri scritti, massimamente le „contributions" vi si citano
assai di spesso. Mi rincresce assai che la stampa minutissima V'impedirà
di fare di quest'opera insigne l'uso che merita ad ogni riguardo.
Mi sarebbe un sommo piacere di rivedervi di quà della Valle di
Giosafatte; ma ricordatevi che sono avvezzo di profittare ogni anno delle
vacanze accademiche, dimodoché dalla seconda settimana di Agosto fino
a tutto Settembre, se non v'è impedimento di malattia, non mi trovo al mio
domicilio. Vi ripeto quanto Vi scrissi già più volte che il veder riuniti in
83
Rev. John Fenwick, who had charged the American scholar Charles Eliot
Norton the princely fee of £5 for the privilege of examining the Monarchia
MS (ex Phillips) in his possession.
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un volume tutti i Vostri scritti Danteschi che pubblicaste oltre alle „contributions" mi sembrerebbe cosa ben grata a tutti gli studiosi del sommo
poeta. Le osservazioni finissime e le congetture ingegnose vi sono frequenti, e tale trovo anche la Vostra opinione sulle sette teste del carro della
Chiesa, che sempre mi sembrarono un „enimma forte".
Serbai fino alla fine di parlarvi della tristissima cagione dei margini neri
che fregiano questo foglio. Il mio figlio primogenito, già professore ordinario di leggi, stimatissimo per le sue pubblicazioni scientifiche, e
felicissimo padre di famiglia fu colpito sette anni or sono da un'affezione
cerebrale. Coll'andar del tempo non era più possibile di ritenerlo colla
moglie e coi figli, e l'infelice dovette passare degli anni terribili in un
istituto per alienati di mente. Figuratevi quanto ho sofferto durante tutto
questo tempo! Il giorno 26. di Gennajo ha cessato di vivere, e vicino a settanta sei anni mi toccò di assistere ai funerali di un amatissimo figlio.
Compatitemi, chè saprete indovinare il sommo mio dolore.
Colla speranza di rivedervi nel corso dei prossimi mesi Vi saluto di
cuore, pregandovi di credermi per sempre
tutto Vostro
Carlo Witte
We do not know whether, when he died at Salzburg in November
1876, Barlow had paid Witte the visit referred to in these last letters;
but what is clear is that if, as in 1853, Beatrice was again on the agenda
the two men were destined to remain as far apart as ever in their views.
Witte, in his edition of the Vita Nuova, had not merely .failed to advocate the spirituality of Beatrice', as understood by his friend, but
had named Centofanti among those who by denying her real existence
have misinterpreted the libello84. Barlow's dissent is recorded in the
margins of his copy. Where D'Ancona's statements on Dante's earthly
love for Beatrice are quoted with approval he erupts vehemently: ,This
I hold to be thoroughly false, and a very miserable mistake and foolish
notion altogether of the origin of the Divina Commedia' 85 ; Witte's
thesis that there are two distinct donne gentili, the one wholly and solely real ( Vita Nuova), the other pure abstraction (Convivio), is more
succintly deprecated: with a twice-repeated disbelieving interjection
(,Oh!')86.
84
85
86
University College Library, DANTE DD 223 (1876), p. ix.
lb., p. vii.
lb., p. xiii.
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November 1876 sees the end of one era in English Dante studies, an
era Barlow could be said to represent, and the beginning of another
dominated by Edward Moore and the Oxford Dante Society, which
held its first meeting on 24 of that month, just a fortnight after
Barlow's death. By another apt coincidence, just a fortnight before,
on 24 October, Moore had despatched his first letter to Halle (concerning the subject of his first communication to the Dante Society)87,
thus initiating a correspondence that was to end only with Witte's
decease in 1883, and in effect taking over (though without knowing
it at the time) the role of English interlocutor to Witte about to be
vacated by Barlow 88 .
87
He wrote in order to consult Witte about the interpolation discovered
in one of the Bodleian MSS of the Comedy (Can. 103). Cf. The Athenaeum,
No. 2580,7 April 1877, and E. Moore, Contributions to the Textual Criticism
of the Divina Commedia, Cambridge 1889, pp. 708-711.
88
His letters to Witte (some fifteen in all) survive at BNUS, MS 2529, ff.
359-93, and MS 1811A. With Barlow, on the other hand, he would not appear
to have ever had any personal contact.
110
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