In "Francesca di Rimini," a historical play filled with erudite archæological details, he displays a knowledge of the thirteenth century and of the customs of the time which has never been excelled save by historical writers. It is a picture of war and bloodshed, of treachery and accusation. The central theme is the love of Francesca and Paolo. They may be taken as the typical human beings of the thirteenth-century Italy, fond of luxury and beautiful things but savage in their reactions. Perhaps Francesca is one of the best feminine figures that D'Annunzio has ever drawn. In 1904 there appeared two volumes entitled "Praises of the Sky, the Sea, the Earth and of Heroes." After that period his tragedies, "The Light under the Bushel," "The Ship," "Fedra," and "The Mystery of San Sebastian" appeared in French, and soon he adopted France as his home, having previously published a spiritual autobiography of eight thousand four hundred lines entitled "Laus Vitæ," in which he summarizes the motives of his past and lays the basis of his new inspiration. D'Annunzio's war poems have all been inspired with the belief that Italy's future lies on the sea. It is much to be regretted that they have not yet been collected into a single volume. When it is done he will not unlikely be recognized as the most legitimate of Pindar's descendants. Undoubtedly he will want them to be the conspicuous, permanent wreath on his tomb. The Libyan War inspired him to the production of his noblest war poetry, "Canzoni della Gesta d'Oltremare" ("Songs of Achievements across the Sea"). In the "Canzoni di Mario Bianco" he foresaw the beginning of a new era for Italy, and he forecast the aspirations and promises of the third Italy. His "Canzone del Quarnaro" describes the raid of the three Italian torpedo-boats on the Buccari, a few miles to the southeast of Fiume. It is short and forceful. The introductory "beffa" describes the raid in detail. D'Annunzio is inordinately fond of using Christian imagery, and he reverts to it here in the distribution of his little tricolor flags, which has a mystic import. "It is a true eucharistic sacrament, the closest and most complete communion of the spirit with beautiful Italy. There is no need of consecrating words; the tricolor wafer was converted through our faith into the living beauty of our country. We are purified, we are sundered from the shore and from our daily habits, separated from the land and all vulgar cares, from our homes and from all useless idleness, from profane love and all base desires; we are immune from the thought of return." The "Cantico per l'ottava della Vittoria" is a wish fulfilment for him. As the boat enters the Quarnaro and runs up the coast of Istria it is, for D'Annunzio, the guarantor of the treaty of London, and he sees all the cities and islands of this coast restored to Italy, and these cities and all the places hallowed by the war join in the pæan of triumph.