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RENAISSANCE IN ITALY
ITALIAN LITERATURE
In Two Parts
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
Author of
"Studies of the Greek Poets," "Sketches in Italy and Greece," etc.
"Questa provincia pare nata per risuscitare le cose morte,come si è visto della Poesia, della Pittura e della Scultura."
Mach.: Arte della Guerra
PART I
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1888
PREFACE.
This work on the Renaissance in Italy, of which I now give the last twovolumes to the public, was designed and executed on the plan of an essayor analytical inquiry, rather than on that which is appropriate to acontinuous history. Each of its four parts—the Age of the Despots,the Revival of Learning, the Fine Arts, and ItalianLiterature—stood in my mind for a section; each chapter for aparagraph; each paragraph for a sentence. At the same time, it wasintended to make the first three parts subsidiary and introductory tothe fourth, for which accordingly a wider space and a more minute methodof treatment were reserved. The first volume was meant to explain thesocial and political conditions of Italy; the second to relate theexploration of the classical past which those conditions necessitated,and which determined the intellectual activity of the Italians; thethird to exhibit the bias of this people toward figurative art, andbriefly to touch upon its various manifestations; in order that,finally, a correct point of view might be obtained for judging of theirnational literature in its strength and limitations. Literature mustalways prove the surest guide to the investigator of a people'scharacter at some decisive-vi- epoch. To literature, therefore, I felt thatthe plan of my book allowed me to devote two volumes.
The subject of my inquiry rendered the method I have described, not onlynatural but necessary. Yet there are special disadvantages, to whichprogressive history is not liable, in publishing a book of this sort byinstallments. Readers of the earlier parts cannot form a just conceptionof the scope and object of the whole. They cannot perceive the relationof its several sections to each other, or give the author credit for his