Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/54

XI. important Iegal work was a commentary on the first nine hooks of Justinian's Code. Besides commemorating Cino in this work, Dante is believed to have addressed an extant Latin letter to him (Epistola IV., p. 305, in this volume), and also five sonnets, but does not refer to him in the Comedy. For some of the information given in this note I am indebted to the kindness of Mr E. G. Gardner.

32. i.e. common to the 'many peoples' by whose 'common consent' it was established (above, 9:98).

46. Pharalia II, 391-438. 83. Cf. Giovanni del Virgilio's poetic Epistle to Dante (lines 15, 16), 'Clerks scorn the vernaculars, even though they varied not, whereas there are a thousand idioms.' There may be here an allusion to the present passage.

CHAPTER XI

[In view of the many discordant varieties of the Italian vernacular, Dante purposes to search for a language fitted to belong to the whole of Italy, and proceeds in this and the next four chapters to reject the claims of the principal dialects to occupy that position. He first rejects the dialects of Rome, the March of Ancona, Spoleto, Milan, Bergamo, etc., Aquileia and Istria, Casentino, Prato, and Sardinia.]

As the Italian vernacular has so very many discordant varieties, let us hunt after a more fitting and an illustrious Italian language ; and in order that we may be able to have a practicable path for our chase, let us first cast the tangled bushes and brambles out of the wood. Therefore, as the Romans think that they ought to have precedence over all the rest, let us in this process of uprooting or clearing away give them (not