[26] "Lingua Tusca magis apta est ad literam sive literaturam quam aliæ linguæ, et ideo magis est communis et intelligibilis." Antonio da Tempo, born about 1275, says this in his Treatise on Italian Poetry, recently printed by Giusto Grion, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1869. See p. 17 of that work.
[27] This fact was recognized by Dante. He speaks of the languages of Si, Oil, and Oc, meaning Italian, French, and Spanish. _De Eloquio_, lib. i. cap. 8. Dante points out their differences, but does not neglect their community of origin.
[30] See _Archivio Glottologico Italiano_, vol. ii. Villani, lib. vii. cap. 68.
[31] _Cantilene e Ballate, Strambotti e Madrigali nei Secoli xiii. e xiv._ A cura di Giosuè Carducci (Pisa, 1871), pp. 29-32.
[35] See _ibid._ p. 45, the stanza which begins, _Matre tant ò_.
[38] The practical and realistic common sense of the Italians, rejecting chivalrous and ecclesiastical idealism as so much nonsense, is illustrated by the occasional poems of two Florentine painters--Giotto's Canzone on _Poverty_, and Orcagna's Sonnet on _Love_. Orcagna, in the latter, criticises the conventional blind and winged Cupid, and winds up with:
L'amore è un trastullo: Non è composto di legno nè di osso; E a molte gente fa rompere il dosso.
[39] See Carducci, _op. cit._ pp. 52-60, for early examples of Tuscanized Sicilian poems of the people.
[40] The Tuscanized Sicilian poems in Carducci's collection referred to above, are extracted from a Florentine MS. called _Napolitana_, and a Tenzone between man and woman (_ib._ p. 52), which has clearly undergone a like process, is called _Ciciliana_.
[41] See Francesco d'Ovidio, _Sul Trattato De Vulgari Eloquentia_. It is reprinted in his volume of _Saggi Critici_, Napoli, 1879. The subject is fully discussed from a point of view at variance with my text by Adolf Gaspary, _Die Sicilianische Dichterschule_, Berlin, 1878.
[42] _Rime di Fra Guittone d'Arezzo_, Firenze, Morandi, 1828, 2 vols.
[43] _De Vulg. Eloq._ ii. 6; ii. 1; i. 13, and _Purg._ xxvi. 124.
[44] His poems will be found in the collections above mentioned, p. 26, note.
[49] Fauriel, _Dante et les origines_, etc. (Paris, 1854), i. 269.
[50] D'Ancona, _La Poesia Popolare Italiana_ (Livorno 1878), p. 36, note.