From this language he exacted a hard trial;--a work which should rank with the ancient works. None such had appeared; none had even advanced such a pretension. Not that it was a time dead to literature or literary ambition. Poets and historians had written, and were writing in Italian. The same year of jubilee which fixed itself so deeply in Dante's mind, and became the epoch of his vision--the same scene of Roman greatness in its decay, which afterwards suggested to Gibbon the _Decline and Fall_, prompted, in the father of Italian history, the desire to follow in the steps of Sallust and Livy, and prepare the way for Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Davila, and Fra Paolo.[103] Poetry had been cultivated in the Roman languages of the West--in Aquitaine and Provence, especially--for more than two centuries; and lately, with spirit and success, in Italian. Names had become popular, reputations had risen and waned, verses circulated and were criticised, and even descended from the high and refined circles to the workshop. A story is told of Dante's indignation, when he heard the canzoni which had charmed the Florentine ladies mangled by the rude enthusiasm of a blacksmith at his forge.[104] Literature was a growing fashion; but it was humble in its aspirations and efforts. Men wrote like children, surprised and pleased with their success; yet allowing themselves in mere amusement, because conscious of weakness which they could not cure. [Footnote 103: G. Villani was at Rome in the year of jubilee 1300, and describes the great concourse and order of the pilgrims, whom he reckons at 200,000, in the course of the year. "And I," he proceeds, "finding myself in that blessed pilgrimage in the holy city of Rome, seeing the great and ancient things of the same, and reading the histories of the great deeds of the Romans, written by Virgil, and by Sallust, and Lucan, and Titus Livius, and Valerius, and Paulus Orosius, and other masters of histories, who wrote as well of the smaller matters as of the greater, concerning the exploits and deeds of the Romans; and further, of the strange things of the whole world, for memory and example's sake to those who should come after--I, too, took their style and fashion, albeit that, as their scholar, I be not worthy to execute such a work. But, considering that our city of Florence, the daughter and creation of Rome, was in its rising, and on the eve of achieving great things, as Rome was in its decline, it seemed to me convenient to bring into this volume and new chronicle all the deeds and beginnings of the city of Florence, so far as I have been able to gather and recover them; and for the future, to follow at large the doings of the Florentines, and the other notable things of the world briefly, as long as it may be God's pleasure; under which hope, rather by his grace than by my poor science, I entered on this enterprise: and so, in the year 1300, being returned from Rome, I