Gregory IX was pope at the time of their birth, and waged war with the great Emperor with all the craft and determination which had characterised him as Cardinal Ugolino. Like his predecessors, he established the papal Court about once in three years at Perugia in order to keep the Imperial popularity in check. When Jacopo, the son of Benedetto di Simo, was eight years old, Gregory was there for the last time. He drove back to Rome through Todi, after a somewhat troubled residence, for even at Perugia he found a warm leaning towards the cultured and fascinating Frederick, which troubled the reverence due to the pontiff. But as the people believed that the Holy Father's power could avail against flood, famine, and pestilence, by which Umbria was then devastated, the province executed a discreet volte-face during his stay, and he was received at Todi with every kind of spectacular honour. We know that Jacopo was in the crowd assembled to receive his benediction; and perhaps Benedetto Gaetani was there too, for he had powerful relatives at Todi and got his early schooling there. They were not unlike each other in character at that time, both full of spirit, reckless, delighting in wild truancies, disobedient, quarrelsome, ready for the mimic encounters of the street, perhaps rivals in and out of school.

The young Gaetani's claim to nobility of birth rested on somewhat insecure assumption; one can imagine the two braggarts taunting each other, for we know that both were boastful; and, although a notary's son may seem to us of no lofty status, Jacopo was born of a highly placed family, its members Counts of the Empire, men of feudal property and notaries, because the profession carried high privileges-magistracies, chancellorships, ambassadorial possibilities. It may be that their intercourse already contained some mutual pique and initiated the later hostility. But there was an elementary difference between them. Benedetto had imagination as well as Jacopo, boundless imagination, but it thirsted for power and had visions only of supremacy. Jacopo's imagination rioted in all that made for a certain glory of living, for sumptuous apparel and feasts, for ruffling it amongst his peers, for song and satire, sparkling talk and ingenious wit. In him an extravagant humanity pulsed; in Benedetto Gaetani an extravagant audacity.

Jacopo, as we learn from his own confession, was difficult to control and was often in disgrace with his stern father. It was Ser Benedetto's desire that his boy should succeed to his professional position and its emoluments; and he had had hard work to keep the lad steady to his lessons in Latin. In time, however, he was sufficiently advanced to be sent to Bologna for training in canon and civil law, in literature and in theology. Gaetani was despatched to Paris, also bent on jurisprudence and theology. At Bologna Jacopo studied diligently, and we find him already doctor of law at the age of twenty. Signor Biordo Brugnoli describes his triumphant course through the city of scholars when he attained his degree:

'Surrounded by a troop of roystering, cheering fellowstudents, and preceded by the four University trumpeters, a youth of about twenty years, clad in scarlet gown, rode a palfrey adorned with decorated trappings, and comported himself with a comic air of scholarly dignity. It was the newly-made Doctor Jacopo, who traversed the streets of the city amidst an applauding crowd of friends of both sexes, acquired during his residence in learned Bologne.'

His exuberant humanity helped his popularity, and he must have been delightful company. His gifts were roused by the vivifying influences of the place; along with canon and civil law he studied literature, which had received a definite impetus from the fervours of the century, and, following the lead of St Francis, was finding its occasional expression in the vernacular. Jacopo probably knew Guinicelli, who is extolled in the 'Purgatorio' (canto XXVI) as a poet

6 Who was a father to me and to those

My betters who have ever used the sweet
And pleasant rhymes of love.'

And again:

"Those dulcet lays which, as long

As of our tongue the beauty does not fade,

Shall make us love the very ink that traced them.'

Dante mentions him too in the Convito' and in 'De Vulgari Eloquio.' Guido Guinicelli was of noble Bolognese family, and was already a noted poet. If his

beautiful sonnets so impressed Dante when he was first finding the sonnet form a fitting shrine for the memory of Beatrice, we cannot doubt that Jacopo read them eagerly, perhaps engaged in friendly rivalry with the acknowledged poet, discovered for himself the poetic value of the vernacular, and tried his prentice hand on every classic mould. Guinicelli was eight years older than Jacopo, and was resident in Bologna. It was still the time of troubadour poetry; and both practised the 'sweet and pleasant rhymes' of Provence. There is a delicacy in Guinicelli's thought and diction to which Jacopo never attained, but Jacopo had the stronger afflatus, the finer frenzy of the two.

The thirteenth century Renaissance, in which more than half a hundred poets-the foremost being Guinicelli -took part before Dante, possessed two distinguishing characteristics-its fine aftermath of classic philosophy, and its own tremulous sense of sin, death, and judgment. What in Imperial Rome had become a melancholy acceptance of annihilation, a creed leading either to desperate courses of intemperate dissipation, or to cold and pulseless resignation, was in this outburst of mental growth, of emulation, of vitality in vernacular evolution, quite as sensible of death and of failure, but penetrated by a savage theological faith whose most potent tenets were hell and the judgment to come. This penitential fervour derived from St Francis and St Dominic. So overwhelming was this flood of emotion that, although the century's poets were not carried out of their depth upon its current, they did not and could not escape its influence. It was as much in the air as was puritanism in England when the Tudors and Stuarts reigned, or as is agnosticism in our own time. And dread of hell was a profitable weapon for the Church.

A renaissance spirit is apt to breathe doubt, to loosen moral obligation, to counsel pleasure, even while it is enhancing men's knowledge, expanding their outlook, enriching their powers. It takes time for the ferment to subside, for the new order to appear. But in the thirteenth century the Church was still a living and authoritative power. Jacopo had come under its influence both in Todi and at Bologna, and was as learned in its theology as in law. But the Church had its pet

toleration; and we learn from the Divina Commedia ' how infinitely more heinous in its computation were the sins of the mind and the spirit than those of the flesh. The latter could be confessed, paid for in penance and annealed; the former incurred censure, suspicion, torture, martyrdom.

6

We find Jacopo not only a successful student, but a boon companion of the nobler and richer youths of Bologna. He was advised by his worldly-wise father to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," and chose his comrades with an eye to their position and wealth. His father gave him funds for extravagance, and he was conspicuous by his fine clothes and equipages, the banquets he gave, and his reckless expenditure. Amongst his friends were the choicest spirits of disorder in Bologna; and he tells us in his satires and confessions how wild were their excesses, how insane their pranks, how opposed they were to order and authority. Indeed their follies overleapt the limits of decency and of reverence for things sacred. It was a common feature of their entertainments to sing ribald songs which parodied the metre, the words, and even the music of religious chants and hymns. Jacopo was skilled in this ignoble mimicry; and, as he studied secular verse, so he studied the forms used in church services that he might use them for this purpose. In time he almost exhausted his father's estate, and was recalled to assist in its recovery.

On his return to Todi he seems to have been astounded at the effect of his vainglorious career in Bologna and set himself to professional work with energy. He made an excellent notary, conducting the local cases with skill and success, and securing both confidence and esteem from his fellow-citizens. Knowledge of the world, wide interests, and great charm of manner, made him a marked personage in Todi and its environs. But he resented lack of means to maintain the state he loved, and he added to his professional activity a secret source of moneymaking by usurious lending. He avows this in the 'laud' O pitiful Christ,' and adds the detail that he gave scarcer measure to the poor than to the rich, and dunned them more ruthlessly for payment. He was soon as wealthy as he desired to be; but there was still lacking to him the dignity of a household presided over by a

highborn and beautiful wife. The years which made him rich made him older, and he was nearly forty years of age when he decided on marrying. His father was dead, and he was living in the big house on La Piana at which we have already glanced. To this house he brought a bride in 1267. She was Giovanna di Bernardino di Guidone; and her family ranked amongst the Counts Comitoli. Ser Bernardino was a Ghibelline, as was Jacopo; and his feudal property was at Canalicchio, near Todi. The Counts Comitoli had freed themselves from subjection to Perugia, and had established themselves within the more tolerable jurisdiction of Todi. Vanna was good and beautiful, and not only won the devotion of her brilliant husband, but influenced him for good. Like a very troubadour, he extolled his 'treasure' in song. She gave him all her affection, meeting his wishes even when they ran counter to her own.

For Vanna had felt the strong wind of the Spirit which swept through Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and France from 1258 for more than a decade of years. Perhaps it originated in Umbria and was a natural sequel of the Franciscan reformation, acting on and through the people rather than through the degenerate friars. War, pestilence, and famine were desolating central Italy; spiritual scourges followed-suspensions, interdicts, excommunications-even more formidable to the imagination than material troubles; and consciences were shaken into a penitential conviction that they were the tokens of God's wrath. It may be that Raniero Fasani snapped the cord, and liberated crowds to the freedom of agonised confession; but it is evident that the way of the Spirit had been long prepared by the example, the rule, and the third order of St Francis.

The highways of four countries were filled with wandering companies calling men, women, and children to prayer and penance, to the praise of God, and to poverty. These strange wayfarers took the road from Perugia to Todi, and had been seen there long before Jacopo's marriage. There is indeed some reason to suppose that even his conscience had been stirred, and that he had abandoned his unholy practices. Vanna had been more than moved; she had yielded to the influence of the Spirit; she had in her seclusion given