Patrizzi’s plan is quite different. His book consists of two parts or “decades”—_La Deca Istoriale_ and _La Deca Disputata_; and though in some copies (my own is an instance) the cart is perversely put before the horse, this is evidently a mere stupidity of the binder, due to the fact that both books, which are separately paged and title-paged, are of the same year (1586), and perhaps to the other fact that the Dedication of the _Disputata_ to Don Ferrando Gonzaga, Signor di Guastalla, is dated, while that of the _Istoriale_ to Lucrezia d’Este, Duchess of Urbino, is not. But the very first line of the _Disputata_ makes references to the other as already done. That the “History of Poetry” of _il gran Patricio_, as his commendatory sonneteers love to call him, should be either completely exhaustive or impeccably methodical, it would be unreasonable to expect. [Sidenote: _The_ Deca Istoriale.] There are indeed some surprising touches,[126] both of knowledge and of liberality, in his admissions of the _Architrenius_ and the _Anticlaudianus_, of Marbod and Bede. But for the most part he confines himself to classic and scriptural authors; and his notices are rather those of a classical dictionary maker, or hand-list man, than of a critical historian in the best sense. Still, all things must have beginnings; and it is a very great beginning indeed to find the actual documents of the matter produced and arranged in any orderly fashion, even if we do begin a little in the air with Giubale and Giafeto, and end a little in the dark with Gaufredo and Guntero. ----- Footnote 126: Especially when they are contrasted with the superciliousness (_v. supra_) of Lilius Giraldus and Scaliger. ----- Only when he has spent 150 pages on this arrangement does Patrizzi pass to his Second Book, in which (once more in the true logical order) he arranges the productions of his poets in _kinds_, of which he is a generous and careful distributor. The much shorter Third deals with the kinds of verses; and the Fourth with the festivals and spectacles at which poetry was produced, the Fifth continuing this with special reference to Games and Contests. The Sixth deals with the singing of ancient poetry; the Seventh with its accompanying Music; the Eighth with Rhythm; the Ninth with the Chorus; and the Tenth with the persons who _produced_ ancient poetry—rhapsodists, priests, actors, &c.