Chapter IV

THE DISCOVERY OF MAN.--SPIRITUAL DESCRIPTION IN POETRY.

Popular psychological ground-work. The temperaments 309

Value of unrhymed poetry 310

Value of the Sonnet 310

Dante and the ‘Vita Nuova’ 312

The ‘Divine Comedy’ 312

Petrarch as a painter of the soul 314

Boccaccio and the Fiammetta 315

Feeble development of tragedy 315

Scenic splendour, the enemy of the drama 316

The intermezzo and the ballet 317

Comedies and masques 320

Compensation afforded by music 321

Epic romances 321

Necessary subordination of the descriptions of character 323

Pulci and Bojardo 323

Inner law of their compositions 324

Ariosto and his style 325

Folengo and parody 326

Contrast offered by Tasso 327

CHAPTER V.

BIOGRAPHY.

Advance of Italy on the Middle Ages 328

Tuscan biographers 330

Biography in other parts of Italy 332

Autobiography; Æneas Sylvius 333

Benvenuto Cellini 333

Girolamo Cardano 334

Luigi Cornaro 335

CHAPTER VI.

THE DESCRIPTION OF NATIONS AND CITIES.

The ‘Dittamondo’ 339

Descriptions in the sixteenth century 339

CHAPTER VII.

DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTWARD MAN.

Boccaccio on Beauty 344

Ideal of Firenzuola 345

His general definitions 345

CHAPTER VIII.

DESCRIPTIONS OF LIFE IN MOVEMENT.

Æneas Sylvius and others 349

Conventional bucolic poetry from the time of Petrarch 350

Genuine poetic treatment of country life 351

Battista Mantovano, Lorenzo Magnifico, Pulci 352

Angelo Poliziano 353

Man, and the conception of humanity 354

Pico della Mirandola on the dignity of man 354