[309] Quidquid ingenio esset hominum cum quadam effectum elegantia, id prope divinum ducebat.
[310] This is the book (comp. p. 185, note 2) of which one part, often printed alone, long passed for a work of Pandolfini.
[311] In his work, De Re Ædificatoria, l. viii. cap. i., there is a definition of a beautiful road: ‘Si modo mare, modo montes, modo lacum fluentem fontesve, modo aridam rupem aut planitiem, modo nemus vallemque exhibebit.’
[312] One writer among many: Blondus, Roma Triumphans, l. v. pp. 117 sqq., where the definitions of glory are collected from the ancients, and the desire of it is expressly allowed to the Christian. Cicero’s work, De Gloria, which Petrarch claimed to own, was stolen from him by his teacher Convenevole, and has never since been seen. Alberti, in a youthful composition when he was only twenty years of age, praises the desire of fame. Opere, vol. i. pp. cxxvii-clxvi.
[313] Paradiso, xxv. at the beginning: ‘Se mai continga,’ &c. See above, p. 133, note 2. Comp. Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 49. ‘Vaghissimo fu e d’onore e di pompa, e per avventura più che alla sua inclita virtù non si sarebbe richiesto.’
[314] De Vulgari Eloquio, l. i. cap. i. and esp. De Monarchia, l. i. cap. i., where he wishes to set forth the idea of monarchy not only in order to be useful to the world but also ‘ut palmam tanti bravii primus in meam gloriam adipiscar.’
[315] Convito, ed. Venezia, 1529, fol. 5 and 6.
[316] Paradiso, vi. 112 sqq.
[317] E.g. Inferno, vi. 89; xiii. 53; xvi. 85; xxxi. 127.
[318] Purgatorio, v. 70, 87, 133; vi. 26; viii. 71; xi. 31; xiii. 147.