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After a careful consideration of Scheffer's, Fanfani's, Gino Capponi's, and Isidoro del Lungo's arguments, it seems to me clearly established that the Chronicle of Dino Compagni can no longer be regarded as a perfectly genuine document of fourteenth-century literature.
Very different is the character of the historical literature which starts into being in Florence at the opening of the fourteenth century. See Paul Scheffer-Boichorst, Florentiner Studien, Leipzig, 1874, Carl Hegel, in his defense of Compagni, Die Chronik des Dino Compagni, Versuch einer Rettung, Leipzig, 1875, admits the proof of spuriousness. See the preface, p. v.
Not the Compagni family; for there is no evidence to show that they had piqued themselves upon being the depositaries of their ancestors masterpiece, nor did they make any effort, at a period when the printing-press was very active, to give this jewel of their archives to the public.
This MS. was bought by G. Libri from the Pucci family in 1840, and sold to Lord Ashburnham. Del Lungo identifies it with a MS. which Braccio Compagni in the seventeenth century spoke of as 'la copia più antica, appresso il Signor senatore Pandolfini.
This is Isidoro del Lungo's Codex A. The note occurs also in the Ashburnham MS. which Del Lungo refers to the fifteenth century. On this point it is worth mentioning that some good critics refer the poems to an elder Dino Compagni, who sat as Ancient in 1251.
We might mention, as famous instances, the Neri and Bianchi factions introduced into Pistoja in 1296 by a quarrel of the Cancellieri family, the dismemberment of Florence in 1215 by a feud between the Buondelmonti and Amidei, the tragedy of Imelda Lambertazzi, which upset Bologna in 1273, the student riot which nearly delivered Bologna into the hands of Roméo de' Pepoli in 1321, the whole action of the Strozzi family at the period of the extinction of Florentine liberty, the petty jealousies of the Cerchi and Donati detailed by Dino Compagni, in 1294.
In a letter which he wrote to his guardian, Chevalier Gherardo Compagni, he alludes to the stolid indifference of the English people and philosophers to the brilliant achievements in aeronautics which had been made and so much belauded on the Continent.
This MS. has been minutely described by Professor Paul Meyer; and Isidoro del Lungo publishes a fac-simile specimen of one of its pages. By some unaccountable negligence this latest and most determined defender of Compagni has failed to examine the MS. with his own eyes.
In S. Trinita, in the Chapel of Neri Compagni, he painted in fresco the life of S. Giovanni Gualberto; and, in the principal chapel of S. Lucia in the Via de' Bardi, some scenes in fresco of the life of that Saint, for Niccolò da Uzzano, who was portrayed by him there from the life, together with some other citizens.
The note appended to Gino Capponi's Storia della Repubblica di Firenze. 6. Dino Compagni e la sua Chronica, per Isidoro del Lungo, Firenze, Le Mornier. Unluckily, the last-named work, though it consists already of two bulky volumes in large 8vo, is not yet complete; and the part which will treat of the question of authorship and MS. authority has not appeared.
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