[73] See the little book of curious learning by Alessandro d'Ancona, entitled I Precursori di Dante, Firenze, Sansoni, 1874.
[74] See De Sanctis, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, vol. i. chap. 5. Of the Commedia Spirituale dell'Anima I have seen a Sienese copy of the date 1608, a reprint from some earlier Florentine edition. The Comedy is introduced by two boys, good and bad. The piece itself brings God as the Creator, the soul He has made, its guardian angel, the devil, the powers of Memory, Reason, Will, and all the virtues in succession, with corresponding vices, on the scene. It ends with the soul's judgment after death and final marriage to Christ. Dramatically, it is almost devoid of merit.
[75] See Revival of Learning, chapter ii.
[76] See above, Revival of Learning, chapter ii. I may also refer to an article by me in the Quarterly Review for October, 1878, from which I shall have occasion to draw largely in the following pages.
[77] Par. xvi.
[78] Carducci, "Dello Svolgimento della Letteratura Nazionale:" Studi Letterari (Livorno, 1874), p. 60.
[79] The Divine Comedy was probably begun in earnest about 1303, and the Decameron was published in 1353.
[80] Boccaccio was called Giovanni della Tranquillità partly in scorn. He resented it, as appears from a letter to Zanobi della Strada (Op. Volg. vol. xvii. p. 101), because it implied a love of Court delights and parasitical idleness. In that letter he amply defends himself from such imputations, showing that he led the life of a poor and contented student. Yet the nickname was true in a deeper sense, as is proved by the very arguments of his apology, and confirmed by the description of his life at Certaldo remote from civic duties (Letter to Pino de' Rossi, ibid. p. 35), as well as by the tragi-comic narrative of his discomfort at Naples (Letter to Messer Francesco, ibid. pp. 37-87). Not only in these passages, but in all his works he paints himself a comfort-loving bourgeois, whose heart was set on his books, whose ideal of enjoyment was a satisfied passion of a sensual kind.
[81] See above, vol. ii. Revival of Learning, chap. ii. pp. 87-98.
[82] Boccaccio, Opere Volgari (Firenze, 1833), vol. xv. p. 18.