However, Brunetto seems to have considered that he had a gift that way. Both his leading works may be termed moral-scientific treatises. The longer of the two, the _Tesoro_, was written in French prose, and is much of a compilation from classic authors in some sections. It had hitherto only been preserved to the public in an old Italian translation, but quite recently the French text has been printed. Sacred, profane, and natural history, geography, oratory, politics, and morals, are the main subject-matter of this encyclopædic labour; than which probably no contemporary produced anything more widely learned, according to the standard of that age. The _Tesoretto_ is a shorter performance, written in Italian verse; shorter, yet still of substantial length, numbering, even in its extant incomplete state, 22 sections or ‘_capitoli_.’ This is the work upon which I shall draw for our first specimen of an Italian Courtesy-Book. Something bearing upon the like questions might also be gleaned from the _Tesoro_, but, as that is properly a French book, I leave it aside. The _Tesoretto_ sets forth that its author, being at Roncesvalles on his return from an embassy in Spain, received the bad news of the battle of Montaperti. Getting astray in a forest,[2] he finds himself in the presence of no less a personage than Dame Nature, who proceeds to give him practical and theoretic demonstrations on all sorts of lofty subjects. She then tells him to explore the forest, where he would find Philosophy, the four Moral Virtues (Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice), Love, Fortune, and Over-reaching (Baratteria). He follows her instructions, searching out these personages from Philosophy on to Love: the four Virtues are attended by many ladies, among whom Brunetto specifies particularly Liberality, _Courtesy_, Good-faith, and Valour. After his interview with Love, he resolves to reconcile himself with God, and makes a full confession at Montpélier. Having received absolution, he does not return after Fortune and Over-reaching, but goes back to the forest, and thence reaches the summit of Mount Olympus. Here he sees Ptolemy, who is about to harangue him, when suddenly the _Tesoretto_ comes to an end. Its best editor, the Abate Zannoni, supposes that the concluding portion of the poem was written, but has been lost to posterity.