At about the same time, however, a last, and the most vigorous, if not altogether the best informed, attempt was made to put the matter on this true historical basis. [Sidenote: _Patrizzi: his_ Poetica.] A year (1586) before the publication of Tasso’s _Discorsi_, and of his _Apologia_, though long after the writing of the first, and not without reference to himself and the dispute between his partisans and those of Ariosto, there had been printed at Ferrara, in two parts, one of the most important and original of the numerous treatises which appeared during this half-century or more, under the title of _Della Poetica_. It was the work of Francesco Patrizzi (as he is generally cited in books, though both in the title-pages of this work, and in the signature of his Dedication, it is spelt Patrici). The inspiration of the book was, at least partly, due to the violent anti-Peripateticism of which Patrizzi was at this time the twin champion with Bruno;[125] and while we must no doubt thank this party spirit for being in great part the cause of the volume, there may be room for objecting that it somewhat obscures the pure critical value of the treatises. That value, however, remains great, and would be great even if there were nothing in the book but an ill-carried-out idea. For its idea is the basing of the inquiry into poetry, not on _a priori_ discussion of the nature of the thing, and of its exponent the poet,—not on previous authority as to these questions,—but on a historical examination of extant poetical composition. It is, of course, true that an examination of the kind was ready at hand in Scaliger’s book. But nothing was further from Scaliger’s mind than to _base_ his inquiry on this: on the contrary, it comes late, and is merely intended to supply illustration and texts for verbal criticism. Footnote 125: Bruno himself, in more places than one, takes the same line; indeed his statement in the _Eroici Furori_, that “the rules are derived from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets,” is the conclusion of the whole matter, and would have done his friend Sidney a great deal of good. (The passage may be found at p. 38 of the first vol. of the translation by I. Williams (London, 1887, or in the original, ed. Lagarde, p. 625).) But Bruno’s genius, as erratic as it was brilliant, could not settle to mere Rhetoric.