Page:The National Idea in Italian Literature.djvu/26

 king, Alfonso, if he wishes to save his throne. Let him say in the hearing of all the nation: "I have taken up arms not for myself alone, but for the reputation of Italy, that she may be in the hand and rule of Italians, not of foreigners." The lyrical counterpart of Pontano's letters is the virile canzone of another southern poet, his friend and colleague, Chariteo; the vanguard of the invaders had already crossed the Alps, when he exhorted the Italian states to lay aside private ambitions, and combine in the face of the common foe:—

It was with the name of Italy, in the last stanza of the Orlando Innamorato, that Boiardo, sick to death, drops his pen, too full of apprehension for his native land to continue his story:—

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