The comparative—though only comparative—paucity of authors in Italy is so far favourable to the historian working on a small scale, that it allows a more expansive treatment of the greatest men, and at the same time the inclusion of minor writers not always of high distinction, but indispensable to the continuity of the narrative. This is essential in a book which does not profess to be a string of biographies, but a biography of Italian Literature herself regarded as a single entity revealed through a succession of personages, the less gifted among whom may be true embodiments of her spirit for the time being. Many remarkable manifestations of the national intellect are, nevertheless, necessarily excluded. Writers in dialect are omitted, unless when acknowledged classics like Meli or Belli. Academies and universities are but slightly mentioned. Theologians, jurists, and men of science have been passed over, except in so far as they may also have been men of letters. There is, in fact, no figure among them like Luther, who, though not inspired by the love of letters as such, so embodied the national spirit and exerted so mighty an influence upon the language, that he could no more than Goethe be omitted from a history of German literature.

Some want of proportion may be charged against the comparatively restricted space here allotted to Dante. It is indeed true that if genius prescribed the scale of treatment, at least a third of the book ought to have been devoted to him; but this very fact refutes the censure it seems to support, since, the limits assigned admitting of no extension, all other authors must have suffered for the sake of one. In a history, moreover, rather dealing with Italian literature as a whole than with writers as individuals, the test is not so much greatness as influence upon letters, and in this respect Dante is less significant than Petrarch and Boccaccio. Preceding the Renaissance, he could not profoundly affect its leading representatives, or the succeeding generations whose taste was moulded by it; and although at all times admired and venerated, it was only at the appearance of the romantic school and the Revolution that he became a potent literary force. Another reason for a more compendious treatment of Dante is that while in the cases of other Italian writers it is difficult to remedy defects by reference to any special monograph, English literature possesses several excellent handbooks to the Divine Comedy, resort to which would be expedient in any case.

The books to which the writer has been chiefly indebted are enumerated in a special bibliography. He is obliged to Mr. W. M. Rossetti and to Messrs. Ellis and Elvey for permission to use the exquisite translations from theDante and his Circle of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, cited in the early chapters of the book. The graceful versions from Boiardo and other poets contributed by Miss Ellen Clerke have not, with one exception, been previously printed. Where no acknowledgment of indebtedness is made, translations are by the author of the volume.

RICHARD GARNETT.

December 1897.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I.THE BEGINNINGS OF ITALIAN LITERATURE[1]
II.THE EARLY ITALIAN LYRIC[12]
III.DANTE’S LIFE AND MINOR WRITINGS[24]
IV.THE DIVINE COMEDY[40]
V.PETRARCH AS MAN OF LETTERS[53]
VI.PETRARCH AND LAURA[66]
VII.BOCCACCIO[82]
VIII.THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY[97]
IX.THE POETICAL RENAISSANCE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY[110]
X.CHIVALRIC POETRY[126]
XI.ARIOSTO AND HIS IMITATORS[140]
XII.MACHIAVELLI AND GUICCIARDINI[156]
XIII.OTHER PROSE-WRITERS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY[170]
XIV.THE PETRARCHISTS[185]
XV.HUMOROUS POETRY—THE MOCK-HEROIC[201]
XVI.THE NOVEL[212]
XVII.THE DRAMA[223]
XVIII.TASSO[237]
XIX.THE PROSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY[256]
XX.THE POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY[272]
XXI.THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY[288]
XXII.THE COMEDY OF MASKS—THE OPERA—DRAMA OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY		[305]
XXIII.THE REVIVAL[327]
XXIV.THE REGENERATION[352]
XXV.THE NINETEENTH CENTURY—MIDDLE PERIOD[375]
XXVI.CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE[394]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE[419]
INDEX[425]