The Greatest of Mediæval Hymns [pp. 28-40]

1882.] THE GREATEST OF MEBI~vAL HYMNs 37
Mater." In Tresatti's edition * of the works of Jac6pone his
poems are divided into seven books, none of which contain the
"Stabat Mater"; but if this be used as an argument against his
claim it will lose its force by the counter-statement that Tresatti
omits from his poems "Cur Mundus," the authenticity of which
may be said to be undisputed. The memory of Pope Innocent
III., so traduced by Protestant historians, has been amply vindicated by Fried rich Hurter, a writer of rare abilities, who was subsequently led into the Catholic Church by a critical study of ecclesiastical history. The fame of this great pope of the thirteenth
century now rests secure in his learned and exhaustive work.t
As a sentiment quite independent of critical judgment, we, for
our part, prefer to associate the "Stabat Mater," so full of religious emotions for both Protestant ~ and Catholic, with the lowly
Franciscan poet, of whom M. Ampere says that he was "dans
ses effusions mystiques, un precurseur de Saint Jean de la Croix
et de Sainte Therese," ~ but whom we would call, from a literary
point of view, a precursor of Dante.
In the unrest of his great soul the divine Florentine, wandering across the mountains of Lunigiana, stopped one day at the
gate of the monastery of the Santa Croce del Corvo. The traveller, weary and sore of foot, knocked for admittance, and the
monk who opened its portal, peering into that strange, wan face
with which art has made us so familiar, asked: "What seek
you here?" Dante, harassed by conflicts from without and by
sorrows from within, looked wistfully about as he answered,
"Peace "-pacem, the aspiration of the saint and the longing of
the worldling. There is something in this story of the fiery poet
seeking consolation in the cloistral quiet of a monk's cell typical
of the spiritual anguish which agitated the soul of more than one
of his poetic precursors. Sorrow, whether or not~we consider it
the mysterious dower of genius which we can neither understand nor express, seems to tinge with its sombre coloring the
vision of all great hearts who have moved the world to higher
realms of thought by the pathos of verse. The undertone of
* The seven books given in Tresatti's edition are as follows: book i. Le Satfre; book ii.
I Cantici morali; book iii. Le Odi; book iv. I Canticipenitentiali; book V. Theorica del divino
amore; book vi. Cantici s~6?~ituai? arnatori'~ book vii. Segreto Spfrituaie.
t Hurter's Geschichte Papst Innocenz III. und seiner Zeitgenossen was publisbed from 1834
to z8~ In z8~ be became a Catholic.
~ In describing tbe last moments of Sir waiter Scott, Lockhart says: "we very often beard
distinctly the cadence of the "Dies Ir~" and I think the very last stanza that we could make
out was tbe first of a still greater favorite-' Stabat Mater dolorosa'"(Lockhart's Scott, vol. x.
p.214).
~ Revue des Deux Mon des, Juin, z5~~ p. 1261.