It has sometimes been held that portions of the _Convivio_ were written before exile. Nevertheless, while two of the canzoni were composed before 1300, it seems most probable that the prose commentaries took their present shape between Dante’s breaking with his fellow-exiles and the advent of Henry VII. A passage concerning Frederick II., “the last emperor of the Romans with respect to the present time, although Rudolph and Adolph and Albert were elected after his death and that of his descendants” (_Conv._ iv. 3), shows that the fourth treatise was written before the election of Henry VII., in November 1308; while a reference to Gherardo da Cammino, lord of Treviso (iv. 14), seems to have been written after his death in March 1306. From the mention of Dante’s wanderings in exile through so many regions of Italy (i. 3), it has sometimes been argued that the first is later than the subsequent treatises. It is tempting to associate the breaking off the work with Boccaccio’s story of the recovery of the beginning of the _Inferno_. Be that as it may, the advent of the new Caesar, Dante’s own return for a while to political activity, probably interrupted his life of study; and, when the storm passed away and left the poet disillusioned, his ideals had changed, another world lay open to his gaze, and the _Convivio_ was finally abandoned. FOOTNOTES: [10] _Io spero di dicer di lei quello che mai non fue detto d’alcuna_: _dicer_ (_dire_) and _detta_, have here (as elsewhere in Dante) the sense of artistic utterance, and more particularly composition in poetry, whether in Latin or the vernacular. _Cf._ _V. N._ xxv. [11] Livi has shown that the first documentary evidence of the existence of the _Vita Nuova_ as a book is found at Bologna in June 1306. [12] The Sexcentenary Dante admits as authentic one canzone not included in this series: _Lo doloroso amor che mi conduce_ (_Rime_ lxviii., O. canz. xvi.*); which is evidently an early composition. [13] _Cf._ _Rime_ xlviii., lvi., lxiii. and the later xcix.; O. son. xlviii.*, ball. viii., son. I.*, son. xxxvii.* [14] Note especially Rime lix., lxvi.; O. sonnets lv., xxxviii*. [15] To this group I would assign the sonnet, _Chi guarderà già mai sanza paura_, and the ballata, _I’ mi son pargoletta bella e nova_, without attaching any special significance to the fact that “pargoletta” (“maiden” or “young girl”) occurs also in the canzone, _Io son venuto al punto de la rota_, and in Beatrice’s rebuke, _Purg._ xxxi. 59. [16] _Cf._ G. Livi, _Dante suoi primi cultori sua gente in Bologna_, p. 24. [17] Barbi adds to the _Rime_ written in exile the impressive political sonnet, yearning for justice and peace, _Se vedi li docchi miei di pianger vaghi_ (of which the attribution to Dante has sometimes been questioned), and the sonnet on Lisetta, _Per quella via che la bellezza corre_, a beautiful piece of unquestionable authenticity, but which may, perhaps, belong to an earlier epoch in the poet’s life.