doctrines taught by Dante in the work. As we cannot here enter into these disputes and discussions, we must simply refer the reader to the following works, which treat of them :1.

Fontanini, Giusto : Eloquenza Italiana, Bk. II, chap. xxxij sqq. Perticari, Giulio: Dell' Amor patrio di Dante e del suo Libro intorno al Volgare Eloquio. Milan, 1820.

Nicolini, G. B.: Considerazioni intorno agli Asserti di Dante nel Libro della Volgare Eloquenza, etc., in his Works, 1847, pp.

90-107.

Fraticelli, Pietro: Dissertazione sul Volgare Eloquio, in Opere Minori di Dante, Vol. II, pp. 121–137.

Cavalieri, Angelo: Del Volgare Eloquio di Dante, in Dante e il suo Secolo. Florence, 1865-6, pp. 669-77. Boehmer, Ed.: Ueber Dante's Schrift De Vulgari Eloquentia. Halle, 1868.

D' Ovidio, Franc.: Sul Trattato De Vulg. Eloq. di Dante Alighieri. Critical Essays. Naples, 1879, pp. 330-436. (This is the most important among the many treatises that have been published on the De Vulgari Eloquentia).

4. THE LOVE-FEAST.

The consciousness of having risen above the common crowd; the desire to place science within the reach of all, and to reconcile and

[1 The false title, so generally given to the work, naturally led many persons to believe that its subject was philological, and that Dante, the father of Italian, had therein set to work to settle which was the true Italian dialect. Dante does, indeed, deal with the Italian dialects cursorily; but the purpose of the work was plainly to give instruction in the poetic art of the vulgar tongue. See a letter from Alessandro Manzoni to Ruggero Bonghi, prefixed to Giuliani's edition of the work. That Dante meant to extend the De Vulgari Eloquentia to ten books, and to make it a complete treatise on Romance poetry, is, I think, perfectly clear, from Eclogue I, vv. 68 sqq. See above, p. 209, note.]

attemper the old with the new; the love of fame and a strong desire to free himself from dreaded infamy, made Dante resolve to write a great work, a work which, in many respects, and considering the time at which it was written, is unique in its kind. Having in his mind, perhaps, the Symposia of Plato and Plutarch, he gave this work the title of Feast (Convivio) — an allegorical title having reference to the author's intention to serve up the bread of science to whoever stood in need of it, and could not have it. The work assumes the form of a commentary upon the author's philosophical lovelyrics. It was his intention to write commentaries to fourteen of these poems, so that the complete work would have comprehended fifteen treatises, including the first, which forms a general introduction, stating the plan of the work and the motives which induced the author to write it, and to do so in the vulgar tongue, instead of in Latin. Only four treatises were finished: then the gigantic task was suspended, and Dante never resumed it. But, although unfinished, The Feast is, next to The Comedy, the most important of Dante's works, important not only in itself, but still more for the light it throws upon the true method of interpreting the Sacred Poem.

The subject of the work is Philosophy, which Dante defines as the "loving treatment of Wisdom" [III, 12]. But, inasmuch as, according to him, Philosophy embraces the whole universe, things sensual and material, things supernatural and spiritual, the human and the divine,

so the work was intended to form a vast encyclopædia of human knowledge. Dante, in writing this work, first set the example of philosophizing in the vulgar tongue. In doing so, he opened a new path to science; furnished the first model of scientific Italian prose; rejuvenated science, by introducing consciousness into it; first drew philosophy out of "the schools of the religious and the circles of the philosophers,” and introduced it into political and civil life; gave philosophy a new purpose, a new dress, a new movement.

Modern writers are wont to call The Feast, Il Convito. The title occurs in the work itself eight times, and in all these cases, twenty-four codices, and among them the most ancient and authoritative, read, not Convito, but Convivio. But the matter is one of very slight importance.1

It would be impossible to give a compendious analysis of a work of this kind, embracing so many various subjects. Vito Fornari, in his admirable work mentioned below, observes : "The character of the style is uniform in all the four treatises; and as to the intrinsic worth of the thought, taking the good with the poor parts, there is little to choose between them. In the first treatise, the chapters treating of the vulgar tongue are especially remarkable for brilliancy of conception and vivacity of style; most of the rest is mere padding. In the second and third, amid a mass of ineptitudes, there are some exquisite observations on the human spirit, and some profound views in metaphysics. The fourth treats of morals, for the most part in a way which is neither puritanical nor vulgar; but it sets out with

[1 See Karl Witte's essay, Convivio o Convito? in Dante-Forschungen, Vol. II, pp. 574-80.]

some very lofty observations on politics and the philosophy of history."

A catalogue of the manuscripts of The Feast is to be found in Giuliani's edition (Florence, 1875), pp. xxv-xxix. The editio princeps is the Florentine one of Bonaccorsi, 1490, 8vo. The Feast was three times reprinted in the sixteenth century, seven times in the eighteenth, and ten times in the nineteenth. Besides the editions of Fraticelli and Giuliani mentioned above (p. 187), there are three others deserving of mention: (1) the Milan edition of 1826; (2) the Padua of 1827; and (3) the Modena of 1827 (with Pederzini's notes).1

Selmi, Francesco: Il Convito, sua Cronologia, Intendimento, Attinenze alle altre Opere di Dante. Turin, 1865.

Fornari, Vito: Del Convito di Dante, in Dante e il suo Secolo, pp. 443-60.

Vassallo, Carlo: Il Convito di Dante Alighieri. A Lecture. Florence, 1876.

§ 5. THE DE MONARCHIA.-In the Middle Age, the eyes of all the civilized peoples of Europe were constantly turned toward Rome, not merely because that city was the centre of the dominant religion, but also because the memories of a glorious past were inseparable from it. True, the Roman Empire had perished ages before; nevertheless, there still lived in men's hearts the desire and the hope to see it rise again from its ruins. Various attempts, attended with more or less success, were made to restore it; but all in vain. The

[1 It must be candidly confessed that there does not exist any even tolerable edition of The Feast. Even that of Giuliani, by far the best, is in no sense a scholarly work.]

hand that moves on the dial-plate of history would not be set back. The name Roman crossed the Alps, being usurped by a people whom the Romans had once conquered and enslaved. It seemed a fine thing to these slaves to assume the name of their masters, and beautiful Ausonia, naturally enough, had strong charms for a people which at all times had shown a strong liking for a seat at others' boards. Assuming the pompous title of The Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation, the stranger imagined that he had therewith acquired the rights once exercised by those who had made themselves lords of the world. And even Italy was not without persons inclined to recognize these pretended rights, and to venerate, in the foreigner, the rightful successor of the ancient Cæsars. Nay, thousands and tens of thousands of persons, standing high above the vulgar crowd, looked hopefully to the stranger, and expected to see peace restored to the world, and the foundations of human happiness laid, by his means.

Alongside the throne of the pretended Cæsars rose the seat of those who, professing to follow in the footsteps of the poor carpenter of Nazareth, who declared that his kingdom was not of this world, had converted the cross into a throne, the common reed into a sceptre, and the crown of thorns into a triple crown of gold. At one time, the two powers, the temporal and the spir itual, were in agreement. But, as soon as the ambitious priest ventured to claim that to him, by divine right, belonged the sovereignty of the universe, and that all