Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/30

ITALIAN LANGUAGE. gprachcn (,S vols.. T-eipzifr, ISIK)-!)!)), a fourth vohime of which is in pieparation. Dictionaries: IVtrocclii. ^010 diziomirio della Uiiyua italiana (Milan. 1884-91), one of the best of the dietionaries wholly in Italian. al>o pub- lished in an abridjjed form ; Toininaseo e Bellini. Di~ionario dcIla liiu/uu italiana (Turin, 1865- 79) ; Rigulini and Fanfani, 'ocaboUi>io italiuno dclln lingua puiluia (3d ed., Florence, 189.')) ; Fanfani, Vocuholario delta lingua italiana (3d ed., Florence, 1891) ; id., Vocabolario delta pro- nunzia toscana (ib., 1803) ; id., 'ocahotario dell' uso toscano (ib.. 1803): Blanc, Vocabo- lario dantcsco (Leipzig;, 1852; Italian trans., 2d I'd.. 1877, and since). The ltalianKnj;lisli and Knglish-Italian dictionaries of Baretti and Alillhousc are unsatisfactory; a better one is that of Edgren (New York, 1902). A good Italian-German dictionary is that of Valentini. There are numerous dictionaries of Italian dialects, some of which are mentioned in Groeber, Grundriss, vol. i. (Strassburg, 1SS8). For further bibliography, this last-named work may be consulted. ITALIAN LITERATURE. The tenacity of Latin ti-adition in Italy retarded considerably the rise and development of literature in the vulgar tongue. Until the first half of the thir- teenth century Latin continued to serve in Italy for the writing of chronicles, historical and nar- rative poems, heroic legends (many of tlicm in- troduced from France; e.g. the story of Charle- magne and his knights, of Arthur and his Round Tabic, the mediseval account of the fall of Troy, and the history of Alexander the Great), religious legends and lives of the saint.s (cf. the famous collection of the Bishop of Genoa, Jacopo da Voragine (1230-98). known as the Lcgenda Aurea), didactic and scientific works (grammars, encyclojxedias, aJid moralizing treatises), reli- gious lyrics (hymns like the "Stabat Mater" and the "Dies Ira>"). and liturgical plays and mysteries (the prototypes of the first Italian dramas, the rapprcsenla^ioni sacre). But Latin was not the only language written in Italy be- fore the time when Italian was thought dignified enough for literary use. The poets of Southern France had already wandered into Italy before the end of the twelfth century, and when the Albigensian crusade drove them forth in the early years of the fourteenth century the trouba- dours crossed the Alps in still greater numbers and sang throughout the land of the Apennines their Provencal songs of love and political strife. There soon arose a school of Italian poets who imitated the methods of these Provencal trouba- dours, and. disdaining their native tongue, wrote in the foreign Provencal. Prominent among them were: Alberto Mal.aspina (C.11G5-1210), Lan- franco Cicala (c. 1200c. 1260), Bonafacio Calvo (c. 1200-70), and especially Bordello (c.I200- C.1270). Like the speech and song of Southern France, the spee<h and verse of Northern France also entered Italy at an early date. The joniitrurs brought the chansons de qeste into the north of Italy, and there, especially in the domain of Venice, great currency was given to the stories of Charlemagne, of his mother. Berte. of his knights like Ogier le Danois, and the heroes of the Carolingian cycle. The clianxonn dc peste were introduced in their native speech. Soon, however. Italians took them up and told the stories in an Italianized form of French (cf. XiccolO da Verona's I'risc dc I'ampelune), and later still certain of the cliansons were related by Italians in a mi.xcd speech, in which Italian predominated. The epic matter thus wiu'ked over in Italy was to become of great importance fur the history of the poems of chivalry in the fifteentli ctnturj-. From Northern France there were imported also the fabliaux, the stories of Reynard the Fox, and the great allegorical and satirical Human dc la A'ose, all of which played a part in the formation of the literature of Italy. As has already been stated (see Italian Lanui'auk), we have specimens of written Italian that <lale back almost to the middle of the tenth century; but they have no literary significance. Nor diK's the eleventh century show anything of importance, and the various documents some- times ascribed to the twelfth century are of too uncertain chronological origin, as in the case of the cantilena bcllunesc, the ritmo cassincse, and the cantilena di un giullare toscano, or prove little, like the jocose and isolated attemjit at writing Italian verse on the part of a foreigner, the Provencal poet Raimbaut de Vaqueiras. in his bilingual contrando. (For these documents, con- sult Monaci, Crestomatia italiana, Citta di Cas- tello, 1889.) With the thirteenth century, however, Italian assumes literary significance. In all parts of Italy the popular language is now used for the composition of verse, which for half a century remains much more important than prose in the vernacular, and in form and content this verse continues faithful to the models from France. Only after a little more than fifty years of rather servile imitation do the Italian poets venture to vary their subject matter and improve u]ion the borrowed forms. It was at the Court of Frederick II. (1194- 1250) in Sicily that the Provencal lyric manner was first imitated in Italian. Hence the early Italian poets are generally grouped together as the Sicilian school, although in point of fact they were not all Sicilians, but had Apulians and Tuscans among them. Chief among their number were the Emperor Fredericl; himself, his son En- zio (e.1225-72), his Chancellor. Pier della Vigna (died 1249), and Giacomo d,a Lentino, who was one of the most fertile of all, and was regarded by Dante as one of the best of the school. These and the other members of the movement sang of love in the conventional Provencal way. adopting the canzone as their stock poetic form, and from them the manner spread into Central Italy and Tuscany, finding acceptance especially in the towns having close relations with Frederick's Court. Thus Arrigo Te^ta in Arrczzo. Folcac- chiero de' Foleacchieri in Siena, and many more reechoed the Sicilian note. In at least one writer of this class. Buonagiunta Orbicciani. there is manifest a tendency to depart somewhat from the methods of the Sicilian school, and to introduce elements of Tuscan origin. This tendency becomes a certainty about 1260-80. in the lyrics of two sets of poets — the one belonging to Tuscany, the other to Bologna — and both representing a transition period during which prominence is given to the sonnet as well as to the rnn::onr, the range of subject for poetic treatment is widened by the introduction of philosophical, religious, and political considerations, and especially of philosophical considerations as to the birth and nature of love, and an endeavor is made to