A document of exceptional importance for us is provided by the two curious dialogues _De Poetis Nostrorum Temporum_[89] of Lilius Gregorius Giraldus, written about 1548-50, and dedicated partly to Renée of Ferrara, the French Princess who for a time protected Marot and others, partly to Cardinal Rangoni. [Sidenote: _Lilius Giraldus: his_ De Poetis Nostrorum Temporum.] Lilius, who was now in a good old age (he had been born in 1478), a Humanist of the better class, and a sincere Catholic possessed of sufficient independence of current ill-fashions to speak with severity of the verses of Beccadelli, would seem also to have been, at first- or second-hand, a man of very wide literary knowledge. His acquaintance with More[90] might be partly (as his very high estimate is certainly) conditioned by ecclesiastical partisanship; but he speaks of Wyatt long before _Tottel’s Miscellany_ made that poet’s works publicly known, even in his own country, and, what is still more remarkable, of Chaucer.[91] [Sidenote: _Its width of range._] Neither France nor Germany is excluded with the usual Italian uppishness,[92] though Giraldus cannot help slipping the word _barbarus_ more than once off his tongue. And though Italy herself has, as we should expect, the lion’s share, yet the process of sharing is not pursued to that extreme of ridiculous arrogance which has been shown by the Greeks in their decadence, by the French in their Augustanism, and by the Italians themselves more than once. ----- Footnote 89: For the neat little edition of this by Karl Wotke (Berlin, 1894) one must be thankful, and also for the careful bibliographical introduction on recent work concerning Renaissance Literature. Footnote 90: _Op. cit._, pp. 62, 63, 70. Giraldus also knows Colet, Grocyn, and others of the set. Footnote 91: “Fuere et in Britannorum idiomate et eorum vernaculo sermone aliqui poetæ ab iis summo in pretio habiti, inter quos Galfridus Chaucerus qui multa scripsit, et Thomas Viatus.” That he adds “_ambo_ insignes equites” is very pardonable. Footnote 92: Not merely northern Humanists like Reuchlin, Erasmus, Eobanus Hessus, and Hutten, not merely Greeks from Gemistus Pletho to Musurus and Lascaris, but foreign vernacular writers like Ressendi, Juan de la Mena, Marot, Martial d’Auvergne receive notice. -----