absolutely abandoned the position of Giraldi and Pigna, that the _romanzi_ constitute a _genre_ by themselves, and are therefore not subject to Aristotle's law of unity. The question as Giraldi had stated it was this: Does every poem need to have unity? The question as discussed in the Tasso controversy had changed to this form: What is unity? It was taken for granted by both sides in the controversy that every poem must have organic unity; and the authority of Aristotle, in epic as in dramatic poetry, was henceforth supreme. It was to the authority of Aristotle that Tasso's opponents appealed; and Salviati, merely for the purpose of undermining Tasso's pretensions, wrote an extended commentary on the _Poetics_, which still lies in Ms. at Florence, and which has been made use of in the present essay.[238] FOOT-NOTES: [210] Pope, i. 133. [211] Rapin, 1674, ii. 2. [212] _Poet._ xxvi. [213] Trissino, ii. 118 _sq._ [214] Daniello, p. 34. [215] _Ars Poet._ 73. [216] Trissino, ii. 112 _sq._ [217] _Arte Poetica_, p. 9. [218] _De Poeta_, pp. 105, 106. [219] _Poet._ iii. 95. [220] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 178 _sq._ [221] Giraldi Cintio, i. 11, 64. [222] Giraldi Cintio, i. 24. [223] _Poet._ viii. 2. [224] Giraldi, i. 66 _sq._ [225] _Cf._ Tiraboschi, vii. 947 _sq._, and Giraldi, ii. 153 _sq._ Pigna's own words are cited in Giraldi, i. p. xxiii. [226] Canello, p. 306 _sq._ [227] Speroni, v. 521. [228] _Cf._ Minturno, _De Poeta_, p. 151. [229] Minturno, _Arte Poetica_, p. 31. For various opinions on the unity of the _Orlando Furioso_, _cf._ Canello, p. 106, and Foffano, p. 59 _sq._ [230] _Arte Poetica_, p. 31. [231] T. Tasso, xii. 219 _sq._ [232] T. Tasso, xii. 234. [233] _Della Vera Poetica_, cap. iii. [234] T. Tasso, xii. 199 _sq._ [235] T. Tasso, xii. 208. [236] Accounts of this famous controversy will be found in Tiraboschi, Canello, Serassi, etc.; but the latest and most complete is that given in the twentieth chapter of Solerti's monumental _Vita di Torquato Tasso_, Torino, 1895. [237] Nearly all the important documents of the Tasso controversy are reprinted in Rosini's edition of Tasso, _Opere_, vols. xviii.-xxiii. [238] The question of unity was also raised in another controversy of the second half of the sixteenth century. A passage in Varchi's _Ercolano_ (1570), rating Dante above Homer, started a controversy on the _Divine Comedy_. The most important outcome of this dispute was Mazzoni's _Difesa di Dante_ (1573), in which a whole new theory of poetry is expounded in order to defend the great Tuscan poet. CHAPTER V THE GROWTH OF THE CLASSIC SPIRIT IN ITALIAN CRITICISM