and in the field of literature ranged from sheer profanity and lewdness to the edifying if amusing hagiological tales which meet us everywhere in the pages of Tammassia’s work upon St. Francis.[99] That Dante’s own literary circle was not innocent of this πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις—ὕβρις, that is, more or less πεπαιδευμένη—a glance at the dainty little collection in Rossetti’s volume will show at once.[100] Not to speak of the famous _Tenzone_ or “literary wrangle” between Dante and Forese Donati, of which the Poet, it would seem, was afterwards ashamed[101]; a group which included the extravagantly humorous Cecco Angiolieri cannot be described as wanting in the “playful use of the intellect.” “Del resto,” says Prof. Sannia, “Dante era un toscano, un fiorentino; che è tutto dire ... nella facoltà comica e satirica ei fu degno rappresentante della sua stirpe, il più degno e il più alto: il genio comico e satirico fu in lui impronta, eredità etnica.”[102] And though he fails to cross-examine the Friar of Parma—perhaps the most telling of all witnesses on this point—he has much to adduce to the same effect. Most pertinent is his quotation of D’Ancona’s remark that the gay songs with which the streets of old Florence rang were not all love-ditties. Popular poetry was one of the forces which ruled the city, “Firenze fu un Comune nel quale la poesia era uno dei pubblici poteri.” It cannot fail to be significant that Dante spent the most impressionable years of his life where the _poesia popolare_, by the inspiration of its eulogy and the stimulus of its satire, took the place of our modern newspapers in the formation, guidance and control of effective public opinion. And if the lessons of Florence were not fully learned at the time—if the _Vita Nuova_ may be said by the unsympathetic to reveal something of the prig—the rough and tumble of an exiled life in fourteenth century Italy had no mean share of teaching to offer. We have thus narrowed the field of observation to Dante himself, and are justified in claiming to have established at the outset at least so much as this: that if Dante was humourless, it was not for want of inspiration in his environment, or of material in the human—the _very_ human—spirits among whom he moved.