Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/138

Rh Three MSS. only of the original are known to be in existence. The oldest, known as T, dating from the end of the fourteenth century, is in the Trivulzian Library at Milan. Another, known as G, dating from the early fifteenth century, is in the town library of Grenoble; and the third, which was written in the early part of the sixteenth century by order of Cardinal Bembo, is in the Vatican Library. Full information as to these MSS. will be found in Rajna's larger edition. We may, however, note here the curious coincidence by which, early in the nineteenth century T, the MS. from which Trissino's version was made, came into the possession of the Marquis Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, a member of whose illustrious family, Cesare Trivulzio, was an intimate friend of Trissino, who inscribed the Castellano to him. It is indeed far from impossible, says Rajna, that Trissino obtained that very MS. from Cesare Trivulzio.

The date of the work may, from internal evidence, be assigned with some confidence to the year 1304 (see discussion of the question in the Temple Classics Convivio, pp. 422-425). In addition to the internal evidence there is another circumstance tending to prove conclusively that the De Vulgari Eloquentia must be assigned to the earlier years of Dante's exile, and to negative the statement of Boccaccio {ubi supra) that the treatise was composed 'when Dante was already near his death'—the only external evidence against the early date of the work. It is impossible to state definitely when the Comedy began to be written, still less when the scheme of the poem began to be matured. But it is