THE TUSCAN DIALECT Tuscan Poetry.—In the i3th century Tuscany was peculiarly circumstanced both as regards its literary condition and its political life. The Tuscans spoke a dialect which most closely resembled the mother-tongue, Latin—one which afterwards be came almost exclusively the language of literature, and which was already regarded at the end of the 13th century as surpassing the others ; "Lingua Tusca magis apta est ad literam sive litera turam" : thus writes Antonio da Tempo of Padua, boin about 1275. Among the other cities Florence owing to geographical and economic causes acquired a pre-eminent position. From 1266, when the Hohenstaufens were defeated at Benevento, she was in a position to begin that movement of political reform which in 1282 resulted in the appointment of the Priori delle Arti. This was afterwards copied by Siena, by Lucca, by Pistoia, and by other Guelph cities in Tuscany with similar popular institutions. Eco nomic prosperity found expression in the erection of churches and town halls and in their artistic decoration. It was no wonder that literature also rose to unlooked-for perfection. In Tuscany, too, there was some popular love poetry ; there were imitators of the Troubadours and the Sicilians, such as Guittone del Viva of Arezzo and Dante of Majano ; but literary originality took another line— that of humorous and satirical poetry. Folgore of San Gimignano laughs when in his sonnets he tells a party of Sienese youths what are the occupations of every month in the year, or when he teaches a party of Florentine lads the pleasures of every day in the week. Cene della Chitarra laughs when he parodies Folgore's sonnets. The sonnets of Rustico di Filippo are half fun and half satire; laughing and crying, joking and satire, are all to be found in Cecco Angiolieri of Siena. But another kind of poetry also began in Tuscany. Guittone d'Arezzo, besides imitating the love songs of the Provencals, attempted political poetry, and thus struck an original note. A more fruitful development occurred at Bologna, the seat of an already famous university. The poets of Provence had paid the same kind of homage to their ladies that the noblemen owed to their feudal overlords ; at Bologna, where the new tendencies of the Schoolmen's philosophy were much discussed, a poet was born, Guido Guinicelli di Magnano (123o 75?), who followed at first the lead of Guittone but soon struck out on an original path, ascribing to his lady the power of calling into activity all the good qualities which were dormant in him, and as he was gifted with an extraordinary power of dramatic imagination and real feeling, he succeeded despite some philo sophical subtleties in composing lyrics of striking beauty which brought about a revolution in Italian poetry and strongly influ enced Cavalcanti and Dante.
But before we come to Dante, certain other facts, not, however, unconnected with his history, must be noticed. Didactic poetry, which was direct in northern Italy, adopted the allegorical device in Tuscany. Thus Brunetto Latini, whom Dante looked upon with filial affection, wrote the Tesoretto, in which the author professes to be lost in a wilderness and to meet with a lady, who is Nature, from whom he receives much instruction. Francesco da Barberino, a learned lawyer, wrote two little allegorical poems— the Documenti d' amore and Del reggimento e dei costumi delle donne. A fourth allegorical work was the Intelligenza, attributed to Dino Compagni.
from Latin of moral and ascetic works, of histories and of treatises on rhetoric and oratory, several of which were due to Bono Giamboni. Among the oldest prose writing is a scientific book— the Composizione del mondo by Ristoro d'Arezzo, who lived about the middle of the 13th century. This work is a copious treatise on astronomy and geography. Ristoro seems to have been a careful observer of natural phenomena, and consequently many of the things he relates were the result of his personal investiga tions. There is also another short treatise, De regimine rectoris, by Fra Paolino, a Minorite friar of Venice, who was probably bishop of Pozzuoli, and who also wrote a Latin chronicle.
The 13th century was very rich in tales. There is a collection called the Cento novelle antiche, which contains stories drawn from Oriental, Greek and Trojan traditions, rrom ancient and mediaeval history, from the legends of Brittany, Provence and Italy, and from the Bible, from the local tradition of Italy as well as from bestiaries and ancient mythology. There were other prose tales inserted by Francesco da Barberino in his work Del reggimento e dei costumi delle donne, but they are of much less importance than the others. Some attention should be paid to the Lettere of Fra Guittone d'Arezzo, who wrote many poems and also some letters in prose, the subjects of which are moral, religious and political. During the later middle ages it had be come the fashion to ornament Latin orations and letters with all sorts of rhetorical devices, among them rhythmic clausulae (cursus), and such a practice, which was enforced by a number of rhetorical treatises (artes dictandi), Guittone followed when writing Italian, with results that are often extravagant.
Guido Cavalcanti was a learned man with a high conception of his art. He felt the value of it, and adapted his learning to it. His poems may be divided into two classes—those which portray the philosopher, "il sottilissimo dialettico," as Lorenzo the Mag nificent called him, and those which are more directly the product of his poetic nature imbued with mysticism and metaphysics. To the first set belongs the famous poem—Donna mi prega, which in fact is a treatise on the nature of love, and was annotated later in a learned way by Marsilio Ficino and others. But there are many of his poems, the ballate particularly, in which the truth of the images and the elegance and simplicity of style are admirable, and make us feel that we are in quite a new period of art.
Among the followers of the new school was also Cino da Pistoia, of the family of the Sigisbuldi. His love poems are so sweet, so mellow and so musical that they are only surpassed by Dante's. The pains of love are described by him with vigorous touches. It is easy to see that they are not feigned but real. The psychology of love and of sorrow nearly reaches perfection.