the building would soon have tumbled down without faith, so that this distinction between the two classes was formal rather than substantial.

If we follow the exposition in the "Introduzione alle Virtù," we find a confirmation and illustration of what has been said. Philosophy begins by asking the author for the reason of his great sadness, and he replies at first that it is the loss of the blessings of fortune, of worldly splendour and fame. But she proves to him the vanity of such things. What, she says, is the goal of the human race, and why did God set it on the earth? He created men so as to fill with them the empty seats of those angels who were hurled with Lucifer from Heaven to perdition. However, the wealth and honour of the world are diametrically opposed to this aim, and instead of lamenting, he should rejoice at their loss. And when he goes on complaining that he has lost also the blessings of nature, that he is ill and miserable, she tells him that he may console himself: for this world is a valley of tears, a kind of purgatory, given to man, "so that he may here be able to weep and cleanse himself of his sins," and he who suffers with patience and humility shall come to possess Paradise. "The tribulation and anguish of the world are the punishments of God," which He inflicts out of love, as a father on his children. The Kingdom of Heaven is the "natural and permanent goal" of men, their "native land," and the whole of life is nothing but a struggle for the attainment of this true fatherland. The way to Heaven is narrow and wearisome; but there are friends who lovingly guide us over it. The author begs Philosophy to make him acquainted with these good friends. They appoint a day, and when he has come they mount their horses and start on the journey. They reach a meadow, where they behold a beautiful spring in the shade of a pine tree, and near at hand they find the palace of Christian faith, whose walls are of gold and precious stones. is seated on a wonderful stool, teaching many people that surround her. When she sees Filosofia enter, she wishes to humble herself. But the former does not permit this, takes her by the hand, embraces her with tears of joy, and asks her: 66 My daughter Fede, how art thou faring in the service and grace of God?" And she said: 'Very well, when I

Fede

am accompanied by thee: for without thy company, one cannot recognise God, nor do aught that is good." And the other said: "And little would my knowledge avail me, if it were not for thy faith" (cap. 15). In this way did the author in this scene express the relations between philosophy and religion, as they were in an age when men wished to philosophise while believing, and to believe while philosophising.

In the palace of Fede they take their evening meal; thereupon the author has to undergo an examination in the articles of faith, and finally they go to bed. The next morning they again set out and reach a mountain, from which they see a large plain, and many people armed for battle. It is the virtues on the one side, and the vices on the other. They order their armies in lines of battle-here, the seven principal vices under the chief command of Pride; there, the four cardinal virtues, as captains, with the subordinate vices and virtues as leaders of the single battalions; and, in the meantime, Philosophy tells her pupil the names, and explains the personifications he sees before him. Fede Cristiana appears in order to support the virtues, and, in a series of combats, she overcomes first, Idolatry, then the Fede di Giudea, then the Heresies, and, finally, Mohammedanism, after the latter had long been victorious. Again Philosophy explains to the author-spectator the allegorical meaning of all that is taking place. It is a kind of symbolical history of the Church. Fede triumphs. The virtues now begin the battle against their enemies. Superbia is overthrown, falling into the pit that has been dug by Frode; the rest flee to Hell. Pazienza moralises over the corpse of Superbia, and Carità distributes the booty among the poor. The idea of this battle of the vices and virtues, both in general and in many particulars, is borrowed from a poem of Prudentius, the "Psychomachia," which, under the image of such a combat, allegorically depicts the struggle between good and evil in the soul of man. However, the author treated his original as freely as when he was making use of the work of Boethius. After the victory, Philosophy descends with the author into the plain, in order to present to him the virtues, the promised friends. These begin by admonishing him, each with its particular precepts; and, finally, he is received and inscribed as their faithful follower.

We have, therefore, in this book, the fundamental idea of religious and moral literature-the liberation of the soul from earthly captivity—in the form of an allegorical journey, with the personifications of the psychological phenomena, and of Philosophy, who plays the part of guide and interpreter. The Middle Ages had, in general, a strong predilection for allegory and symbolism, and this arose from the nature of the literary themes themselves: the spiritual and abstract subject-matter could not be plastically treated with palpable images. The same cause that had introduced the allegorical and symbolical form into religion, operated in the case of literature: allegory makes its appearance when the subject cannot be expressed by the expedients of art, so that one is compelled to say one thing and to understand by it something different. But then one does not limit oneself to employing this form only where it is compulsory. One comes to take pleasure in it for its own sake -in its mysterious and enigmatical qualities, that cannot be grasped by the mind save with difficulty; and so allegory becomes the means of concealing in poetry intellectual ideas, or, vice versa, of clothing the dry propositions of science and morals superficially, at least, in a poetic garb.

IX

THE ALLEGORICO-DIDACTIC POETRY AND THE PHILOSOPHICAL LYRICS OF THE NEW FLORENTINE SCHOOL

THE

'HE real home of the allegorical and didactic poetry at that time was France, where its development was probably largely due to the Latin allegorical treatises of Alanus de Insulis. The most important product of this poetical manner was the "Roman de la Rose," the first part of which had been written by Guillaume de Lorris not long before, and which was being continued by Jehan de Meung just at this time (after 1268). This "Romance of the Rose" is, in the form of a vision, an allegorical representation of love, with its changing joys and sorrows. In it abstractions appear personified-the faculties and passions of the soul, qualities, virtues, the conditions that are opposed and favourable to love, pleasures, happiness, liberality, courtesy, reason, wealth, fair mien, friendly welcome, shame, fear, calumny, prudery, jealousy, and the like; and these represent a varied and vivacious drama, speaking and acting. With Guillaume de Lorris there are few traces of a didactic aim; but in Jehan de Meung there is a preponderance of didactic and satirical matter, touching, as he does, every possible aspect of life, with his endless and superficial digressions. The poem met with extraordinary success, also in other countries, and was much imitated. Á Tuscan poet, Ser Durante, reproduced it with great freedom and notable skill in a corona of two hundred and thirty-two sonnets, retaining only the main narrative of the allegorical love-quest, omitting the digressions and removing much of the prolixity. This poem, which the editor called "Il Fiore," because it speaks only of a flower in the place of the rose, belongs probably to the beginning of the fourteenth century. However, a considerable influence of the "Romance of the Rose" and kindred productions is to be

noted much earlier. The longer Italian allegorical poems, which were composed in the second half of the thirteenth, and the first half of the fourteenth century, plainly stand in close relation to them. Brunetto Latini's "Tesoretto " shows the French influence in the manner of its personifications, in its language, which contains a number of specifically French expressions, as also in its metrical form. The poem

is written in lines of seven syllables, rhyming, in pairs, that is to say, in a metre that approaches as nearly as possible the couplets of eight syllables, which were employed in Provençal and French narrative and didactic poetry. It is even probable that the "Tesoretto" was composed in France, and the work is dedicated to some very exalted personage, who is supposed by Zannoni to be Saint Lewis.

Brunetto Latini was not endowed with the poetical gifts of a man like Guillaume de Lorris, and his allegories lack all grace and vitality; he is a scholar even in his verses, which are made to express the dry learning of the schools, in a bald and sometimes clumsy manner. The author, who, as we have seen, was sent to Spain as Florentine legate, relates how, on his return from that country, he met a student of Bologna, who told him the sad news of the defeat at Monteaperti and the expulsion of the Guelphs, and how his grief at the misfortunes of his native city, rent in twain by party strife, was so great, that he lost his way and took a path through the midst of a wild forest. When the sorrow, that held his soul captive, allowed him to turn his mind again to outward things, he sees, round about the mountain, all kinds of creatures, men, animals, and plants, following the beck of a noble lady. This is Nature, that is described, with touches which at first recall Boethius' philosophy, but afterwards in a petty and tasteless manner, with all the details of feminine beauty-the hair, brow, eyes, lips, teeth, and so on. She instructs the poet in various points concerning the essence of herself, that is, of Nature, and her relation to God, concerning the creation of objects, the angels, and the fall of the proud among them, concerning man, the soul and its powers, the body and the five senses, the four elements and the four temperaments, the seven planets and the twelve constellations of the sun's course. From astronomical subjects a very clumsy transition is made