Calendrical Time and Authority: The Absence of Authority in Episode 26

The opposite is true in the twenty-sixth episode, ff. 19r-19v. This episode describes the imprisonment and death of Count Ugolino Gherardesco along with several other political figures, using five (5) temporal markers in the space of thirty (30) lines, all of which are self-referential.

This is, pace Messer Ugolino, a heartbreaking, even pathetic scene, one also memorialized in Dante's Purgatorio. The author tells us that Ugolino and others were imprisoned in a tower, deprived of food and drink because they had not paid "the deposit of money in the sum of five thousand libri, which was their tax, and also three other tariffs" (per la posta della moneta di libri VM, chera loro in posta, che ne venao pagate tre alre inposte [f. 19r, ll. 18-21]). Starving for lack of money, the whole group died, which the author recalls with a notable degree of specificity: "And when Count Guido arrived in Pisa, the count Gaddo and Uguccione had already died from hunger, and the other three would die in the same week, also in hungry desperation because they did not pay" (E quando lo conte Guido Giunse in Pisa, gia erano morti lo conte Gaddo e Uguiccione di fame, e li alutri tre morinno quello medesma septimana anco per distrecta di fame perche no pagonno [f. 19r, ll. 24-25]). He recalls, then, something of the order in which the men died, and when, down to the week.

There are no calendrical (or liturgical, though that is less surprising) temporal markers in the episode, but this is clearly not because the author does not know when events took place; again, he is able to tell his reader when individuals in the tower (which, delightfully, he notes was henceforth called the Tower of Hunger) died both vis-à-vis each other's deaths and in reference to the presence of Count Guido Giunse in the city. However, he does not tell us when this fell in the calendar, even in the beginning of the episode where we would anticipate that sort of reference. 

All of the author's temporal markers in this episode are self-referential. He begins the episode "When the said master the Count Guido arrived in Pisa" (Quando lo ditto Messer lo Conte Guido giunse in Pisa [f. 19r, ll. 9-10]); he also situates Ugolino and the others' deaths in reference to the count's entrance into the city, as mentioned above. In one of the most fascinating temporal markers in the entire chronicle, he also gives the reader this counterfactual: "and it was said and believed that if only Count Guido had arrived in Pisa before they had started to die, or had become fewer, they would not have been so abandoned nor have suffered, and in such a way would have escaped death (e dissessi e credasi che sol conte guido fusse giunto in Pisa inansi che fusseno cominciati a morire, u che fusseno chusi venuti meno, che nonare lassito nepattito che fusseno morti per quello modo che liare iscampati da morte [f. 19r, ll. 33-34]) (emphases mine).

The use of temporal markers demonstrates that the author knows in detail what happened, but he chooses to use self-referential temporal markers instead of calendrical. Considering what has already been said of the political dimension of calendrical time, it is not difficult to see the implication. In presenting Ugolino as devoid of authority, emasculated, starving in a tower for want of the price of a couple of tariffs, the absence of calendrical time is a potent silence. The author uses calendrical time as a language of political authority; in this episode, we find neither.