Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/477

ITALY (LANGUAGE AND LITEEATITEE) 459 and finally Guido Caralcanti (died 1300), the friend of Dante, who surpassed all his prede- cessors in the learning and polish of his phi- losophic poems, and did much in preparing the way for the great writers who followed him. These authors, of whom little but the names is now familiar to the ordinary student, brought Italian literature to the beginning of its most brilliant and most glorious period, in which Dante (1265-1321) was the great master spirit. Brought up, like all the scholars of his age, in the familiar use of mediaeval Latin, his two earlier works (De Monarchic!, and De Vulgari Eloquio) were written in that tongue. But he soon forsook it for the Italian, which he cherished as the main instrument of that national unity which was a dream of his life. His earliest poem, the Vita nuova, was writ- ten about 1294; the rest were produced in the following order : the De Monarchia, the Conmto, the De Vulgari Eloquio, and finally his crowning masterpiece, beside which all his previous works become insignificant, the Di- vina Commedia (probably 1300-'20), compri- sing the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. It would be impossible to exaggerate the in- fluence of Dante upon the literature of Italy. Though he did not positively re-create the language in which he wrote, he displayed for the first time, and with a power that has not since been equalled, all its capabilities, and its fitness for the highest form of epic poetry and the expression of the noblest thought. The Dirina Cornmedia, one of the greatest poetical creations of any age, had an incalculable effect on the scholarship, the taste, and the literary products not only of Dante's own time, but of all succeeding periods. It was as much the basis and foundation as the master work of Italian literature. Chairs for the exposition of the Divina Commedia were established in the 14th century in many Italian universities, Boccaccio being appointed to the first, that of Florence, in 1373 ; and from that time it has never ceased to exercise a paramount influence over Italian writers. Francesco Stabile, called Oecco d'Ascoli, a contemporary of Dante, was almost the only writer who ever endeavored to detract from the poet's fame. His satire, the Acerha, a witty but ill-grounded attack, had little permanence. Dante had barely comple- ted his great work when Petrarch and Boccac- cio came to share and confirm his literary su- premacy, and to form with him that great tri- umvirate which gave to the 14th century its glory in Italian literary history. Petrarch (1304-'74), distinctively the poet of love, was still more, like Dante, the poet of a united Italy. His chief celebrity consists in his being the father of Italian lyric poetry ; in this he outstripped all his predecessors, and has been surpassed by no poet of his country. He sang all the passions, hopes, and memories of love, and lamented all the divisions and miseries of Italy. He, like Dante, preached to his countrymen mutual forgiveness, peace, and union. His compositions, embracing sonnets, songs, and " triumphs," abound in favorite quo- tations. And yet his principal philosophical treatises, like his first poem, Africa, are in Latin, and afford evidence of his great learn- ing, just philosophical thought, and perfect mastery of the language. But great as is the praise due to Petrarch for the intrinsic excel- lences of his writings, he deserves still more for his lofty patriotic purpose, and the great services rendered in promoting the revival of sound learning. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-'75), the third in this great literary triumvirate, was the ardent admirer and sentimental biogra- pher of Dante, the warm friend of Petrarch, and had the good fortune of being the protege' of the accomplished and luckless queen Jo- anna I., granddaughter of Robert of Anjou, king of Naples. Like Frederick II., Robert had been the munificent protector of Italian art and literature, and like him cherished the Tuscan dialect, in which he left several com- positions. Boccaccio's Teseide was written in ottava rima, which was known in Sicily before him, and which he perfected. This and a prose romance were his earliest compositions. Several works in Latin followed. In 1352 ap- peared his Decamerone, or "Ten Days' Enter- tainment," so called because each of the seven ladies and three young men introduced into it relates a story each day, thus producing 100 stories in 10 days. This work is regarded as the purest specimen of prose of which the Ital- ian language could boast until that day ; but its graces of composition too often adorn the most licentious descriptions. Boccaccio's sto- ries must not be confounded with the Cento novelle antiche, "A Hundred Ancient Tales," which are partly written from the Decamerone, and partly from older popular stories, but all free from indelicacy, and narrated with great simplicity. Franco Sacchetti of Florence (died about 1500) emulated the style of Boccaccio, and composed in a pure and elegant diction 300 tales, of which 258 are still extant, pub- lished in the beginning of the 18th century. Another Florentine, Ser Giovanni, left the Pecorone, a collection of 50 similar stories. The Storia Jiorentina of Dino Compagni, em- bracing the annals of Florence from 1280 to 1312, is considered by modern critics as of doubtful authenticity. Of the work of Gio- vanni Villani, which embodied the history of Florence from its foundation till a few years before the author's death in 1348, only that part is considered trustworthy which treats of the author's own time. This work was con- tinued by Giovanni's brother, Matteo, down to 1363, and to 1365 by Filippo, Matteo's son, who also wrote biographies of illustrious Flor- entines. Of ascetic works in the Italian lan- guage, the first known example is the Specchio della vera penitenza of Giacopo Passavanti (died in 1357), which is comparable for purity and grace of diction with the Decamerone. Passavanti's was followed by similar treatises