NOTES
and again in 1297, he was one of the Consiglio dei Cento, and in May, 1300, went as ambassador to San Gemignano. In the same year he was one of the six priors who decreed the exile of the chiefs of the Donati and Cerchi; he held various lesser offices in 1301, and probably went as ambassador to Boniface VIII, whom he had consistently opposed. With the coming of Charles de Valois to Florence in Nov. 1301 the Black Guelfs rose to power, and 600 of the Whites, with Dante amongst them, were condemned to death or exile on various pretexts. Dante was accused of corruption and extortion and of intriguing against the Pope, and was condemned to pay a fine of five thousand small florins within three days of the sentence, or to suffer the loss of all he possessed, with perpetual exile and perpetual incapacity of holding public office. Shortly afterwards he was condemned to be burnt alive if he fell into the clutches of the Commune. The white Guelfs joined the exiled Ghibellines, but Dante soon became disgusted with the dissensions of these confederates. He never returned to Florence, but passed the remainder of his life in wandering from court to court: first at Verona with Bartolommeo della Scala, then at Sarzana with Malaspina; he was in the Casentino in 1307, in Pisa, and in Lucca. In 1316 a general amnesty for exiles was proclaimed on condition that they did penance in San Giovanni, but Dante was not among the penitents. Non vedrò dappertutto lo splendore del sole e degli astri? His last refuge was Ravenna, where Guido da Polenta, the nephew of Francesca da Rimini, was ruler. He died there on his return from a mission to Venice and was buried in San Piero Maggiore.
The chronological order of his works is probably as follows: Vita Nuova, Rime Amorose; De Volgari Eloquentia, Convivio, De Monarchia. His other poems, letters, and the Divina Commedia, extend over a long period of his life.
