[18] But _cf._ Wicksteed, _From Vita Nuova to Paradiso_, pp. 93-121. CHAPTER III DANTE’S LATIN WORKS 1. _The “De Vulgari Eloquentia”_ In the first treatise of the _Convivio_ (i. 5), Dante announces his intention of making a book upon _Volgare Eloquenza_, artistic utterance in the vernacular. Like the _Convivio_, the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ remains incomplete; only two books, instead of four, were written, and of these the second is not finished. In the first book the poet seeks the highest form of the vernacular, a perfect and imperial Italian language, to rule in unity and concord over all the dialects, as the Roman Empire over all the nations; in the second book he was proceeding to show how this illustrious vulgar tongue should be used for the art of poetry. Villani’s description of the work applies only to the first book: “Here, in strong and ornate Latin, and with fair reasons, he reproves all the dialects of Italy”; Boccaccio’s mainly to the second: “A little book in Latin prose, in which he intended to give instruction, to whoso would receive it, concerning composition in rhyme.”[19] BOOK I.--At the outset Dante strikes a slightly different note from that of the _Convivio_, by boldly asserting that vernacular in general (as the natural speech of man) is nobler than “grammar,” literary languages like Latin or Greek, which he regards as artificially formed (_V. E._ i. 1). To discover the noblest form of the Italian vernacular, the poet starts from the very origin of language itself. To man alone of creatures has the intercourse of speech been given: speech, the rational and sensible sign needed for the intercommunication of ideas. Adam and his descendants spoke Hebrew until the confusion of Babel (_cf._ the totally different theory in _Par._ xxvi. 124), after which this sacred speech remained only with the children of Heber (i. 2-7). From this point onwards the work becomes amazingly modern. Of the threefold language brought to Europe after the dispersion, the southernmost idiom has varied into three forms of vernacular speech--the language of those who in affirmation say _oc_ (Spanish and Provençal), the language of _oil_ (French), the language of _sì_ (Italian).[20] And this Italian vulgar tongue has itself varied into a number of dialects, of which Dante distinguishes fourteen groups, none of which represent the illustrious Italian language which he is seeking. “He attacks,” wrote Mazzini, “all the Italian dialects, but it is because he intends to found a language common to all Italy, to create a form worthy of representing the national idea.” The Roman is worst of all (i. 11). A certain ideal language was indeed employed by the poets at the Sicilian court of Frederick and Manfred, but it was not the Sicilian dialect (i. 12). The Tuscans speak a degraded vernacular, although Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni and another