Note 294 — THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.
Reading edition
{253} This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is—described as being "Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il più nobile filosofo che mai fusse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e ufici nella Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotile che, etc., etc., ebbe due moglie in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.—E Marco Tullio—e Catone—e Varrone—e Seneca—ebbero moglie," etc., etc. [Le Vite di Dante, etc., Firenze, 1677, pp. 22, 23]. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy—Cato gave away his wife—of Varro's we know nothing—and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but recovered and lived several years afterwards. But says Leonardo, "L'uomo è animale civile, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città."
[There is nothing in the Divina Commedia, or elsewhere in his writings, to justify the common belief that Dante was unhappily married, unless silence may be taken to imply dislike and alienation. It has been supposed that he alludes to his wife, Gemma Donati, in the Vita Nuova, § 36, "as a young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing upon me from a window, with a gaze full of pity," "who remembered me many times of my own most noble lady," whom he consented to serve "more because of her gentle goodness than from any choice" of his own (Convito, ii. 2. 7), but there are difficulties in the way of accepting this theory. There is, however, not the slightest reason for believing that the words which he put into the mouth of Jacopo Rusticucci, "La fiera moglie più ch'altro, mi nuoce" ["and truly, my savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me"] (Inferno, xvi. 45), were winged with any personal reminiscence or animosity. But with Byron (see his letter to Lady Byron, dated April 3, 1820, in which he quotes these lines "with intention" [Letters, 1901, v. 2]), as with Boccaccio, "the wish was father to the thought," and both were glad to quote Dante as a victim to matrimony.
Seven children were born to Dante and Gemma. Of these "his son Pietro, who wrote a commentary on the Divina Commedia, settled as judge in Verona. His daughter Beatrice lived as a nun in Ravenna" (Dante, by Oscar Browning, 1891, p. 47).]