[11]. First printed at Basle, 1528. Besides the general editions, there are some separate reprints (e.g., Oxford, 1693). But it ought to have shared the popular diffusion of the Colloquies.
[12]. I use the Tauchnitz ed. (with the Encomium Moriæ) in 2 vols. (Leipsic: 1829).
[13]. V. E. Fournier, Théâtre Français avant la Renaissance (Paris, n. d.), p. 334 sq. It is not at all impossible that the indebtedness may be the other way. The dates of these pieces are very uncertain.
[14]. I use the London folio of 1642, where the letter to Hessus, the Fifth of the Twenty-sixth book, will be found at col. 1407-10. I wish Mr Nichols’ excellent rearrangement had been available. But even its first volume only appeared when this book was in the printer’s hands.
[15]. Hessus, it may be not superfluous to say, was one of the authors of the Epistolæ Obscurorum, and in verse one of the very best Humanists of Germany.
[16]. Mihi semper placuit carmen quod a prosa, sed optima, non longe recederet.—Op. cit., col. 420.
[17]. Those who would like to continue this may look, among many other places, at xii. 7 (praise of Politian); xv. 17 (jubilation over the confusion of Humanism); xvii. 11 (ditto to Vives); xxi. 4 (a good deal on writers both ancient and modern), and especially xxvi. 5 (above noticed).
[18]. See infra (pp. 27-29) on Augustinus Olmucensis (Käsenbrot) and Cornelius Agrippa.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY ITALIAN CRITICS.
THE BEGINNINGS—SAVONAROLA—PICO, ETC.—POLITIAN—THE ‘MANTO’—THE ‘AMBRA’ AND ‘RUSTICUS’—THE ‘NUTRICIA’—THEIR MERITS AND DANGER—PETRUS CRINITUS: HIS ‘DE POETIS LATINIS’—AUGUSTINUS OLMUCENSIS: HIS ‘DEFENCE OF POETRY’—PARADOXICAL ATTACKS ON IT BY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, LANDI, BERNI—VIDA—IMPORTANCE OF THE ‘POETICS’—ANALYSIS OF THE PIECE—ESSENTIAL POVERTY OF ITS THEORY—HISTORICAL AND SYMPTOMATIC SIGNIFICANCE—THE ALLEGED APPEAL TO REASON AND NATURE—THE MAIN STREAM STARTED—TRISSINO—DIVISION OF HIS ‘POETIC’—HIS CRITICAL VALUE—EDITORS, ETC., OF THE ‘POETICS’—PAZZI—ROBORTELLO, SEGNI, MAGGI, VETTORI—THEORISTS: DANIELLO—FRACASTORO—FORMALISTS: MUTIO. TOLOMEI AND CLASSICAL METRES—OTHERS: TOMITANO, LIONARDI, B. TASSO, CAPRIANO—IL LASCA—BEMBO—CARO—VARCHI—MINTURNO—THE ‘DE POETA’—THE ‘ARTE POETICA’—THEIR VALUE—GIRALDI CINTHIO’S ‘DISCORSI’—ON ROMANCE—ON DRAMA—SOME POINTS IN BOTH—ON SATIRE—PIGNA—LILIUS GIRALDUS: HIS ‘DE POETIS NOSTRORUM TEMPORUM’—ITS WIDTH OF RANGE—BUT NARROWNESS OF VIEW—HORROR AT PREFERENCE OF VERNACULAR TO LATIN—YET A REAL CRITIC IN BOTH KINDS—SHORT ‘PRÉCIS’[‘PRÉCIS’] OF THE DIALOGUES—THEIR GREAT HISTORIC VALUE.