FIRST PERIOD- FROM THE TO THE 14TH CENTURY.
Italian literature was late in its beginning, although manners were more refined and the intellectual level higher in the Italian courts and Comuni than in the feudal castles of France of the same period. And the League of the Northern Cities against Barbarossa s invasion, the Vespri Siciliani, the organization of Comuni, the struggle against the encroachments of the Roman Church, the commercial activity of Italian seaports, the establishment of tri bunals of justice and city councils, all testify to a comparative maturity of the national spirit. In France 'La Chanson de Roland' was familiar to the Norman invaders of England in 1060; while the first original piece of Italian poetry, (II Contrasto di Ciulo d'Alcamo,' is approx imately dated 1231.
This late development of Italian literature is chiefly due to the persistence of Roman civil ization and the general use of Latin as the written language. For in spite of the many in vasions of the Peninsula, the Italian stock is not a recent blend. It is the permanent Roman nationality, and the permanent Roman character. That the tradition of intellectual culture was never interrupted is evidenced by the number of Latin writings even in the darkest periods of the Dark Ages, showing that the Peninsnla has never been without some intellectual light. The empire and the Church, those two supreme powers of the Middle Ages, encouraged respect for the Latin by using it as the official lan guage, and thus contributed to the contempt in which was held the spoken language,— Volgare. Even after the noble compositions in Italian, of Trecento (14th century), both Dante and Pe trarch used Latin in their scholarly writings. This Middle Age Latin literature and the grad ual change from Latino Rustico to Volgare Rustico are considered in the article on the ITALIAN LANGUAGE. Though the Volgare was the latest of the Neolatin idioms and was every where used, even by the learned in familiar conversation, it was not until 1231 in the Con trasto that it found its way into literature. Yet so rapidly was it perfected by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio that in Dante's (1300) Italian attained its splendor and per fection earlier than any other European lan guage.
The feudal ideal of chivalry, imported from France and Germany and unsympathetic to Italian tradition, also retarded the development of a national literature. The trouveres of langue d'oel and the troubadours of langue d'oc poured across the Alps and were welcomed by princes and common people. Everywhere these invaders scattered the ideas of their country, and the ideals of their legends. So numerous,
noisy and popular were they that the city of Bologna in 1288 passed a law forbidding quod Cantores francigenarum from dwelling near the town-hall and disturbing the council. Imita tors of the Frence „vie science flourished every where, as Albertino Malaspina, Rambertino Buvalelli and the Mantuan Sordello whom Dante mentions. After the bloody croisade des Albigeois many troubadours sought the protec tion of the Emperor Frederick II of Sicily. Many other intellectual forces sought the sup port of that enlightened prince who welcomed Gli uomini the avevan bontade, giocolieri, sona tori, e trovatori. On account of the learning and culture that came pouring in from all parts of Italy, the volgare used at the court of Fred erick was more refined than that used in Naples or in the northern part of Italy, and more free from Latin than the Florentine dialect. And here in Sicily arose the first school of Italian poetry.
There was little originality and less genuine sentiment in these first productions of that school variously named Provencal, Sicilian or Aulico-cortigiana. It was an imitation in both matter and form from the French model. The sonnet alone where two strambotti are joined is original; otherwise the forms are the ballade, the pastourelle and the sirvente of the trouba dours. Probably anterior to these is the much discussed Ciulo d'Alcamo, or Cielo del Canso, with its charming dialogue between an eager lover and a reluctant but finally yielding sweet heart. The first entreating lines Rosa fresca aulentissima C'aPpari in ver restate are better remembered than the realistic and more sincere conclusion. The name Scuola Siciliana survived the quickly vanished magnificence of the court that fostered it. The Tuscans who had lived in Frederick's court, or corresponded in Ten zoni, were known as °Sicilians?) Folcacchiero del Fokacchieri in Siena and Monte Andrea are remembered as of the second pe riod. To Guido Guinicelli (1240-1) Dante al lows the merit of opening a new field of poetry and of giving in the celebrated canzone Al tor gentil npara sempre amore a new ideal after ward called Il dolce sill nuovo. Guinicelli, whom Dante calls Padre mio e dei miei mig• liori, went from Bologna to Florence, and in spired poets who introduced the spiritelli (im personations of love), in which there is some psychological analysis and much mannerism; The Canzone 'Donna nil prega' of Cavalcante (1260—?) is the most perfect of these. It is a complete scholastic treatise on love's psychology.