able to believe that Villemain was entirely unaware to what an extent Dante's poem has served as a pattern, even if Petrarch and Boccaccio be utterly ignored. In 1860 Señor Vidal y Valenciano Caytano contributed to the Revista de España an informing article on Spanish imitators, translators, and commentators of the Divine Comedy. In Italy, during the fourteenth century, friends and foes alike made him their model. Fazio degli Uberti, with his Dittamondo, an uninspired geographical study, may represent the former; Cecco d' Ascoli, with his insufferably dry "scientific" Acerba, the latter. This Cecco, who must on no account be confounded with that delightful rogue, Cecco Angiolieri, was transformed in popular fancy into a wizard-a high compliment, since Virgil was metamorphosed in precisely the same way. Cecco's conception of poetry was to exclude from it everything in the nature of fable, and he piques himself on the fact that his poem contains none of those passages of the Commedia which Voltaire and other hostile critics consider redeeming oases. Some lines of the conclusion are worth citing, in order to show the comfortable self-esteem of this pigmy, and his amusing depreciation of his mighty contemporary. Cecco's metre, it will be noticed, is a variation of the terzina: "Qui non se canta al modo delle rane, [The list of works that might be recommended for the study of Dante is practically endless. The catalogue of Part I. of the Fiske collection in the library of the Cornell University--perhaps the best collection in the world—has been just issued, and numbers ninety-one quarto pages, closely printed in double columns. In England there has been a remarkable oscillation between prose translations and translations in terza rima. Mr A. J. Butler's labours deserve recognition. He has translated the whole of the Commedia into English prose, as well as Dr Scartazzini's Handbook (London: Macmillan), and has written an excellent little work on Dante and his Times (A. D. Innes). Mr Eugene Lee-Hamilton is the latest aspirant in the field of verse translations, most of which have been dismal failures. On the formal side, Longfellow's is a sham, while Cary's Miltonic effort, if it never sinks very low, is Dante adapted, rather than translated. The writer first studied Dante in Paolo Costa's annotated edition, and an excellent edition it is. In the present work the text of the Oxford Dante, revised and indexed by a group of devoted scholars, has been uniformly followed.] 236 CHAPTER V. DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE. ECCERINIS'-LATIN HISTORIES-RICHARD AUNGERVILLE-PETRARCH-HIS BOCCACCIO-BOCCACCIO'S VERSE-THE 'DECAMERON'—SOURCES— Eccerinis. IN early times High Italy was famous as the seat of Provençal verse and North French poetry, imported literatures. It would be inaccurate to describe mediæval or transitional Latin as imported; nevertheless, in relation to the blossoming volgare, it occupied the same antagonistic position as did they. This antagonism is first recognised as formidable in Petrarch's deliberate conspiracy to undo the work of his predecessor; but the Baptist of the Early Renaissance was Albertino Mussato (born, 1262; died, 1329). Mussato differs from Petrarch in that he is, in all but his choice of language, a thoroughly popular character. Outside literature, the aim of his life was to defeat the ambition of Dante's patron, Can Grande, and the production for which he is best known-the tragedy Eccerinis-was dedicated to the same end. Mussato was a native of Padua, in which city, some sixty years before, Ezzelino da Romano and his brother Alberico had provided a spectacle of tyranny in its worst and vilest shape. To freshen the memory of these events, to fire anew the indignation of the citizens, and thus prevent a recurrence of the episode, was the purpose of Mussato's learned play, in which the chief personage was that son of Satan— literally, in the drama-Ezzelino. In spirit the work is rather lyrical than dramatic. There is no action worth mentioning, and no fine characterisation. With regard to form, it was modelled on Seneca's tragedies, and was never intended to be played. It consists, in a large measure, of long declamatory passages; and, indeed, the whole of the fifth act is taken up with the report of the horrible death of Alberico and his family. Although faultily constructed and "speaking with tongues," the composition, by reason of its ardent patriotism, profoundly impressed the people of Padua, and the author was publicly rewarded with a wreath of laurel, ivy, and myrtle. Latin histories. Mussato described himself in official documents as "poeta et historiographus Paduanus." The latter title he appropriated on the score of two immense historical works: the Historia Augusta or De Gestis Henrici VII. Cæsaris, and De Gestis Italicorum post Henricum VII. Cæsarem. Mussato here takes Livy as his model, imitating him not only in the use of the period and the "oblique oration," but in terminology. Coeval Italian institutions are Romanised out of knowledge. We read of tribunes of the people, decrees of the Senate, and cohorts of the army. Occasionally an explanatory note is added as, for instance, that in which the expression "tribuni plebis" is supplemented by the words "quos gastaldiones appellant"; but, more usually, we are left to grope our way unaided, and with a growing sense of misapplied ingenuity. These histories, however, possess considerable value as chronicles. Not only was Mussato truthful and painstaking, but, regarding much that he has set down, an eyewitness. In this respect he contrasts with another Latin historian, Ferreto da Vicenza, who, not perhaps quite voluntarily, acts the part of special pleader for Can Grande. Ferreto, though he expresses admiration for Mussato, is actually, in style and method, superior to the Paduan; but he of Vicenza does not regard the historian's calling in the same serious light, nor, again, are his statements based on personal knowledge. Mussato and Ferreto were the leaders of a whole school of Latinists, including two older writers, Lovato of Padua and Benvenuto dei Campesani of Vicenza. These scholars, it should be noticed, limit themselves to the linguistic aspect of classical study. Mussato's Latin, though not equal to Petrarch's, is better than Dante's and better than Boccaccio's, but, unlike Boccaccio, Mussato has not cut himself loose from mediæval tradition. His interests and his point of view are those of the mass of his contemporaries. The quasi-ness of Mussato and Ferreto in relation to humanism, of which they have, so to speak, an |