(See above, [p. 24].)
The Italian hendecasyllable is an accentual iambic line of five feet with one unaccented syllable over and included in the rhyme. Thus the first line of the Inferno may be divided:—
Nel mez|zo del | cammin | di nos|tra vita.
When the verse is so constructed, it is said to be piano, the rhyme being what in English we call double. When the rhyme is single, the verse is tronco, and the rhythm corresponds to that of our heroic, as in the following instance (Par. xxv. 102):
Il ver|no avreb|be un me|se d'un | sol dì.
When the rhyme is treble, the verse is sdrucciolo, of which form this is a specimen (Par. xxvi. 78):
Che ri|fulge|va più | di mil|le milia.
It is clear that the quality of the verse is not affected by the number of syllables in the rhyme; and the line is called hendecasyllabic because versi piani are immeasurably more frequent and more agreeable to the ear than either versi tronchi or sdruccioli.
If we inquire into the origin of the meter, the first remark we have to make is that lines of similar construction were used by poets of Provence. Dante, for example, quotes (De Vulg. Eloq. ii. 2) from Bertram: