To review all the leading writers who employed the various vernaculars in the sixteenth century would encroach too much upon the province of professed histories of comparative literature, but a few references to certain figures that tower head and shoulders above all others in their respective countries may serve to call vividly to mind the importance of the period for national literatures.
[Sidenote: Italian Literature]
At the very outset, one important exception must be made in favor of Italy, whose poetry and prose had already been immortalized by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio a hundred years and more before the opening of the sixteenth century. But that country, as we have already repeatedly observed in many kinds of art, anticipated all others in modern times. Italy, almost the last European land to be politically unified, was the first to develop a great national literature.
But Italian literature was broadened and popularized by several influential writers in the sixteenth century, among whom stand preeminent the Florentine diplomat Machiavelli (1469-1527), whose Prince really founded the modern science of politics, and who taught the dangerous doctrine that a ruler, bent on exercising a benevolent despotism, is justified in employing any means to achieve his purpose; Ariosto (1474-1533), whose great poem Orlando Furioso displayed a powerful imagination no less than a rare and cultivated taste; and the unhappy mad Tasso (1544-1595), who in Jerusalem Delivered produced a bulky epic poem, adapting the manner of Virgil to a crusading subject, and in Aminta gave to his countrymen a delightful pastoral drama, the exquisite lyrics of which were long sung in opera.
[Sidenote: French literature]
French literature, like other French art, was encouraged by Francis I. He set up printing presses, established the College of France, and pensioned native writers. The most famous French author of the time was the sarcastic and clever Rabelais (c. 1490-1553), whose memorable Gargantua comprised a series of daring fanciful tales, told with humor of a rather vulgar sort. The language of Gargantua is somewhat archaic—perhaps the French version of Calvin's Institutes would be a better example of the French of the sixteenth century. But France, thus seriously beginning her national literature, was to wait for its supremacy until the seventeenth century—until the institution of the French Academy and the age of Louis XIV.
[Sidenote: Spanish Literature]
Spanish literature flourished in the golden era when Velasquez and Murillo were painting their masterpieces. The immortal Don Quixote, which was published in 1604, entitles its author, Cervantes (1547-1616), to rank with the greatest writers of all time. Lope de Vega (1562-1635), far-famed poet, virtually founded the Spanish theater and is said to have composed eighteen hundred dramatic pieces. Calderon (1600-1681), although less effective in his numerous dramas, wrote allegorical poems of unequaled merit. The printing of large cheap editions of many of these works made Spanish literature immediately popular.
[Sidenote: Portuguese Literature]
How closely the new vernacular literatures reflected significant elements in the national life is particularly observable in the case of Portugal. It was of the wonderful exploring voyages of Vasco da Gama that Camoens (1524-1580), prince of Portuguese poets, sang his stirring Lusiads.