to return. Pope Boniface VIII., fearing that the Ghibelline or Imperialist party would thus obtain the upper hand in the city, incited Charles de Valois, brother of the French King, Philip the Fair, whom he had allured into Italy to attack the King of Naples, to make himself master of Florence. This he accomplished, and the consequent return of Dante's adversaries led to the sacking of his house, the ruin of his fortune, and his life-long exile from his native city. He was at the time absent on an embassy at the Papal Court, from which he retired to Arezzo, where the other exiles had assembled, and must henceforth be reckoned among the Ghibellines.
For some years Dante participated in their endeavours to reinstate themselves by force; but eventually, well-nigh as disgusted with his friends as with his enemies, scorning the ignominious terms on which alone return would have been permitted, and especially discouraged by the failure of the Emperor Henry VII., whose advent to Italy he had welcomed with enthusiasm, he became a wanderer among the courts of the princes and nobles of Northern Italy, generally finding honour and protection, which he frequently repaid by diplomatic services. There seems no doubt of his having visited Paris and studied in the University. The alleged extension of his journey to Oxford is unsupported by convincing evidence, but is not impossible or improbable. A writer near his own day seems to assert that he had been in England. During all this time, like his ancient prototype Thucydides, he was devoting himself to his immortal work, which, published as the respective parts were completed, brought him celebrity and wondering reverence even in his lifetime. His most distinguished patron in his later years was Cane della Scala, surnamed the
