ITALIAN LITERATURE. The tenacity of Latin tradition in Italy retarded considerably the rise and development of literature in the vulgar tongue. Until the first half of the thir teenth century Latin continued to serve in Italy for the of chronicles, historical awl nar rative poems, heroic legends (many of them in troduced from France; e.g. the story of Charle magne and his knights. of Arthur and his Round Table. the account of the fall of Troy, and the history of Alexander the Great), religious legends and lives of the saints (ef. the famous collection of the Bishop of Genoa, Jacopo da Voragine (1230-98). known as the Lcgemla Aurca), didactic and scientific works (grammars, eneyelomdias, and moralizing treatises), reli gious lyrics (hymns like the "Stabat Mater" and the "Dies Ink"). and liturgical plays and mysteries (the prototypes of the first Italian dramas, the rapprcsentazioni sacrc). But Latin was not the only language written in Italy be fore the time when Italian was thought dignified enough for literary use. The poets of Southern France had already wandered into Italy before the end of the twelfth century, and when the Albigensian crusade drove them forth in the early years of the fourteenth century the trouba donrs crossed the Alps in still greater numbers and sang throughout the land of the Apennines their Provencal songs of love and political strife. There soon arose a school of Italian poets who imitated the methods of these Provençal trouba dours, and. disdaining their native tongue, wrote in the foreign Provençal. Prominent among them were: Alberto Malaspina te.11(35-1210), Lan franco (c.1200 c.1°_00), Bonafacio Calvo (c.1200-70), and especially So•dello (c.1200 c.12701. Like the speech and song of Southern France. the speech and verse of Northern France also entered Italy at an early date. The jonglcurs brought the chansons de gcstc into the north of Italy. and there, especially in the domain of Venice, great currency was given to the stories of Charlemagne. of his mother. Berte. of his
knights like Ogier le Danois, and the heroes of the Carolingian cycle. The chansons dr gcste were introduced in their native speech. Soon. however. Italians took them up and told the stories in an Italianized form of French (cf. Niceolo da Verona's Prise de Painpclunc), and later still certain of the •honsons were related Ly Italians in a mixed speech, in which Italian predominated. The epic matter thus worked over in Italy was to become of great importance for the history of the poems of chivalry in the fifteenth century. From Northern France there were imported also the 0/4M/ix, the stories of lieynard the Fox, and the great allegorical and satirical Roman dc in leusc, all of which played a part in the formation of the literature of Italy. As has already been stated (see ITALIAN LANGUAGE), we have specimens of written Italian that date back almost to the middle of the tenth century; but they have no literary significance. Nor does the eleventh century show anything of importance, and the various documents some times ascribed to the twelfth century are of too uncertain chronological origin, as in the case of the •anti/ena Lei/mu-se, the ribno cassincsc, and the cantilcna di un giullarc toscano, or prove little, like the jocose and isolated attempt at writing Italian verse on the part of a foreigner, the Provençal poet Raimhaut de Vaqueiras, in his bilingual contrasto. (For these documents, con sult Monaei, Crestomazia italiana, Citta di Cas tello, 1SS9.) With the thirteenth century. however. Italian assumes literary significance. In all parts of Italy the popular language is now used for the composition of verse, which for half a century remains much more important than prose in the vernacular, and in form and content this verse continues faithful to the models from France. Only after a little more than fifty years of rather servile imitation do the Italian poets venture to vary their subject matter and improve upon the borrowed forms.