BOOKS.
MARIOTTI'S FBA DOLCINO..
TharrE, in a stanza of his Inferno, offers an obscure warning to one Dolcino touching a place of refuge, which was probably written before the execution of Dolcino by torture on the 1st of rune 1307. Commentators on the Divine Comedy all agree that the main error of the heretic consisted in advocating a community of goods and a community of wives. A theory so closely resembling that charged upon certain modern Socialists induced Mariotti to search into the story of Dolcino, not merely among ecclesiastical historians, but in original and contemporary records. The result has pro- duced the volume before us, which not only expounds the alleged opinions of Dolcino, (for everything is recorded by his enemies,) and narrates what is known of his life, but gives a summary view of the speculations that were broached and of the heretics and reformers who disturbed the Romish Church from the first awaken- ing of the European mind in the tenth and eleventh centuries, till the beginning of the fourteenth century. And a very curious and interesting summary this will be found. Of the speculations, indeed, not much is known ; for in a dark age scepticism is confined to few, and is seldom obtrusive, while infidel opinions could hardly be then published with safety even in the free commercial Italian cities; although "the citizens of Florence familiarized themselves with the sight of such men as Farinate degli Uberti, Calvalcanti and his son, musing about their streets with downcast heads, busy, if report spoke truth, with the solution of that arduous problem, 'If peradventure, it could be satisfactorily made out that God was not.'" The opposition not so much to the Romish doctrine as to the Romish clergy was extensively ramified, and in a certain sense open. In Italy and Provence, where education was more widely spread and the popular mind more enlightened than in other parts of Europe, the Scriptures appear to have been read to a greater extent than many Protestants are aware of. The comparison between the riches, pomps, luxury, and vices of the Papal hierarchy, and the self-denying maxims of the Gospel, was soon instituted, and the conclusion inevitable. Indeed the reformers of the clergy might push some texts to an interpretation which human weak- ness will only support in times of great religious excitement; though such texts as "Take no heed for tomorrow," and "Sell all that thou hest," are physically more practicable in a Southern than in a Northern climate. With these opinions bearing upon the discipline of the church, were mixed up some doctrinal notions clearly heretical, though rather added to the dogmas of the Papacy than opposing:them ; that is, many believed the creed and followed the practices of the church and their own dogmas in addition. Among them was an opinion that has been lately revived in France by an extreme sect of Papists, called the St. Esprit Bro- therhood,—showing that there is nothing new under the sun, at least in theology. The reign of Christ was held to be past, and that of the Holy Ghost begun, with of course all the blessings that the Comforter could pour upon the faithful. Some sects were charged with holding the Manichean heresy, originating in the an- cient Eastern theory of two contending powers of good and evil. Some combined the theoretical notions on chastity of the early Christians with the practice of having" sisters" to accompany them. In theory they pushed their maxims so far as to contem- plate the extinction of the species, or its propagation in some new manner ; in practice they are said to have exposed themselves to the temptations which Gibbon describes the African Christians as braving and very often, it may be supposed, succumbing in the struggle. The Apostolical renunciation of worldly goods, combined with a preternatural abstinence, and very possibly some falling-off in each ease from strict professions, enabled their adversaries to charge them with schemes of communism in women as well as in goods; though, as Merlotti observes, all the evidence against them is reported by enemies, and by enemies who perse- cuted them to death.
Of the various opinions thrown up by the fermentation attending this awakening of the human mind, by far the most extensive and most popular was the doctrine of poverty for churchmen. The Scriptural texts in its favour were plain ; the denunciations in the Apocalypse, whether plain or not, indicated the site of Rome and the colour of the Cardinals' costume ; while Antichrist was, as modern jargon expresses it, a good" cry." The pride' luxury, and vices of the churchmen, were not only in opposition toChristiani but to the common instincts of mankind, and were more especially distasteful to the poor, from their own wretchedness. So dangerous did the dissatisfaction become in Italy, in Germany, in the Low Countries, and in Southern France, that Rome was driven in her own despite to countenance the principle of poverty; and hence the origin of the poor or begging monastic orders. The active and submissive reformers were received into the bosom of the church, and enlisted as recruits in her came. The simple, when they fell upon a diocese whose bishop was humane, were permitted to live in peace, and sometimes sunki into a regular order. The sturdy. minded, the polemical, and the conscientious, who would not yield up their opinions or wink at priestly abuses, were declared here- tics, and persecuted with fire and sword, whenever the church had power or could influence the secular arm.
*An Historical Memoir of Fm Dolcino and his Time,; being an Account of a ge- neral Struggle for Ecclesiastical Reform, and of an Anti-Heretical Crusade in Italy in the early part of the Fourteenth Century. By L. Mariotti, Author of" Italy, Past and Present," &c., &c. Published by Longman and Co. Two great heroes in the cause of poverty were the celebrated Francis of Assissi and Sagarelli the predecessor and spiritual master of Dolcino. Francis, by prudence or luck, founded the Franciscan order, and was raised to saimtship ; Sagarelli, after a life of im- prisonments, evasions, and escapes was done to death as a heretic; though Mariotti draws a parallel between them which is not alto- gether in favour of the canonized. Of the life of Dolcino not much is known. He appears to have been a man of powerful eloquence, and capable, like all distinguished leaders, of exercising great influence over others. His followers remained faithful to him during the worst danger and privations ; but the best witness of his merit is the stanza of Dante, for the stern Florentine was not one to avow a regard for mediocrity. It was not merely as an orator or leader of opinion that Frit Dolcino was distinguish- ed; he was perhaps as remarkable as a military strategist. After he had been driven from place to place by his fortune or the persecution of his enemies, he took refuge in a range of Alpine val- lies with some three thousand followers ; and there for two years baled the power of his enemies. This power, indeed, was not overwhelming, for it only consisted of the feudal and militia force under the command of the Bishop—the Pope at Avignon could send no aid, and Italy probably would not. The force, however, was too powerful to be openly encountered, and Dolcino had to baffle it by strategy and defeat it by tactics. He cut off his enemies by stratagem ; he ravaged their lands; he defeated them in positions; and when all the resources of one valley were exhausted, he made his way, in the depth of winter, across mountains hardly practicable in summer. But a Fabian policy, a sacrifice of prisoners by forbidding their ransom, and the eventual exhaustion of the open country, at last enabled his ecclesi- astical opponents to attack Dolcino with success. Yet though worn down by cold and hunger, his followers sold their lives dearly. Of the remnant whom privation had spared upwards of a thousand fell. About one hundred and fifty were taken prisoners ; and among them Dolcino, and Margaret of Trent, the alleged concubine of the apostle. As a rebel, or as an individual waging an un- authorized war, Dolcino's life was undoubtedly forfeited, especially after the cruelties of which he had been guilty ; though not so much by the established rule of those times as by that of ours. It was, however, as a heretic that Mariotti holds he was condemned, and as a heretic, he says, Dolcino could have saved his life by re- tracting; though it is very possible that his priestly judges, when they had disgraced him, would have proceeded against him as a rebel or a land pirate. The punishment was a scene of horrors, rare, it is to be hoped, in the annals even of the Romish Church. "Margaret of Trent enjoyed the precedence due to her sex. She was first led out into a spot near Vercelli, bearing the name of Arena Servi,' or more properly 'Arena Cervi,'—in the sands, that 'is, of the torrent Cervo, which has its confluent with the Sesia at about one mile above the city. A high stake had been erected in a conspicuous part of the place • to this she was fastened, and a pile of wood was reared at her feet. The eyes of the in- habitants of town and country were upon her. On her also were the eyes of Dolcino. She was burnt alive with slow fire.
"Next came the turn of Dolcino : he was seated high on a car drawn by oxen, and thus paraded from street to street all over Vercelli. His tor- mentors were all around him. Beside the car iron pots were carried, filled with burning charcoals ; deep in the charcoals were iron pincers, glowing at white heat. These pincers were continually applied to the various parts of Dolcino's naked body, all along his progress, till all his flesh was torn piece- meal from his limbs ; when every bone was bare and the whole town was perambulated, they drove the still living carcass back to the same arena, and threw it on the burning mass in which Margaret had been consumed."
Margaret had been tempted to recant by offers of marriage.
"But she was proof against similar temptation ; and, indeed, on the tes- timony of the same Benvenuto, we learn that she exhibited greater fortitude than even the very man for whose sake she endured so much.
"But the depth of Dolcino's fortitude who shall presume to fathom? Wife, sister, or concubine, the woman at any rate whom he loved above all human beings—the woman who had shared his unheard-of toils and perils, who had given and was giving such evidence of more than womanly devo- tion—was expiring in the flames before him. With his eyes sternly riveted on her eyes, he bade her be firm ; he bade her cling to him, cling to his faith, and heed not what the ingenuity of tyranny could inflict. The poor woman was writhing as the flickering flames reached her feet, she was quivering in her death-throes, when his admonitory voice rose calmer and calmer, more and more stern and relentless, always bidding her to be firm. "But too firm, poor thing ! With her eyes never shrinking from his steady gaze, with his name on her lips, the name of her Dulcissimo Dul- eine, as the old pedant finds the courage, with a villanous pun, to express it, the brave however erring creature vanished in the flames—she pre- ceded her paramour to hell.'
"What impression could burning coals or white-hot pincers make after that ? Indeed, we would almost say, supposing him ever so guilty, what greater torture could await Dolcino in another world ? The moral anguish he had just undergone deadened him to all mere physical pain. Dolcino WBS not a man of flesh and blood. He disappointed his tormentors to the very last. No change was ever perceptible in his countenance; not a groan was wrenched from his breast ; only,' we are told, with that singular ingenu- ousness with which men wrote five hundred years ago, 'only when they tore the nose from his face he was seen spasmodically to shrug his shoulders; and in another instance, when, before that gate of Vercelli, which is called the Porta Pieta,' another more vital part of his body was violently severed by the seething instrument, a faint sigh escaped from his heart, and .a slight contraction manifested itself in the muscles about the regions of has nostrils."
Dolcino and his tenets are the principal subject of Mariotti's book, but they are not the only prominent feature. The lead- ing heresies and the leading heretics, from the year 1000 to a time beyond the period of Dolcino's execution, with the condition of the Church, and the state of the public mind in Italy., are com- prehensively though briefly treated. This variety of subjects, with the paucity of weight and result in the most conspicuous person, somewhat interferes with the unity of interest, especially as the author occasionally repeats himself, and unites discussion and narrative too much together. The book, however, is interesting and informing. It exhibits the human intellect struggling for truth and freedom, though often in a -wrong direction ; and it shows how long, how uninterruptedly, and how widely the Romish corruptions: were opposed during a period commonly supposed to be sunk in the grossest ignorance. The broader facts, indeed, may be learned from other sources, and some which relate to indi- viduals; but in this book they have been tested by a more liberal criticism than is displayed in the older authors, and applied by a modern and Italian mind. The interest is perhaps somewhat diminished by a spirit of theological indifference ; but in his closing passages, after Dolcino and the results of all the martyrlike struggles are dismissed, Mariotti, in his remarks on the eternity and fecundity of truth, rises into a lofty feeling of eloquence, as in his speculations on the present state of Italy he exhibits a hopeful spirit, alike removed from confidence and despair, though his trust is rather in his cause than in its present prospects. Like the previous works of this author, Era Dolan° is a re- markable specimen of English written by a foreigner, who has mastered even our proverbial and colloquial phraseology, as well as our book style.
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