—ROSSETTI.[3]
Another class of poetry, forming a connecting link with prose, should be briefly mentioned, the didactic. TheTesoretto of BRUNETTO LATINI (1210-1294), celebrated as an encyclopædist of the knowledge of his time, and still more so as the preceptor or rather Mentor of Dante, describes a vision in which the poet supposes the secrets of nature to be revealed to him, and is interesting as in some measure prefiguring the machinery of theDivina Commedia. Francesco Barberino, a notary, wrote both in prose and verse on the bringing-up of girls, and although he is an indifferent writer his work is valuable as a picture of manners. He seriously discusses the question whether girls should be taught to read, and decides it in the negative. An anonymous poem entitled La Intelligenzia, treating philosophically of the emanation of Divine Wisdom, a conception resembling that of the Logos, attains a higher grade of poetical merit, but the best passages appear to be translated from the French and Provençal. The religious lyric of St. Francis of Assisi and of the Umbrian school, more interesting in a psychological than in a literary point of view, culminated about the end of the thirteenth century in the lays of Jacopino di Todi, remarkable examples of impassioned mysticism, and sometimes of satiric force. He is particularly interesting as a popular poet who owes nothing to culture, but derives all his inspiration from the ecstatic devotion which in his day animated a large portion of the Italian common people. The same spirit inspired theRappresentazioni of a rather later period, which will be more appropriately considered along with the Italian drama.
Dante’s prose works demand separate treatment; of earlier examples of prose there is very little to be said. Historians and theologians continued to compose in Latin, and the few writings in the vernacular were chiefly translations from that language. The principal contemporary book in Italian, theTesoro or great encyclopædia of Brunetto Latini, is an important monument of culture, but not of literature. It was, moreover, originally composed in French.
Italian literature had sprung up from nothingness and made enormous progress during three-quarters of a century without having produced a pout of the first or even of the second rank. There was no want of singers; rather there seemed reason for apprehension lest, as Tansillo declared with truth in the Cinque Cento,
The Muses’ troop an army had become,
And every hillock a Parnassus grown—
a complaint anticipated by the anonymous writer of a clever ballata in the thirteenth century:
A little wild bird sometimes at my ear
Sings his own verses very clear:
Others sing louder what I do not hear.
For singing loudly is not singing well;
But ever by the song that’s soft and low
The master-singer’s voice is plain to tell.
Few have it, and yet all are masters now,
And each of them can trill out what he calls
His ballads, canzonets, and madrigals.
The world with masters is so covered o’er,
There is no room for pupils any more.
—ROSSETTI.
But the great poet was about to arise who may almost be said to have created two literatures—his country’s and that specially devoted to himself—and whose own works are such, that if every other production of Italian literature were to perish, it would, on their account alone, continue to deserve a place among the great literatures of the world.