TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: —Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. —Superscripts have been rendered as a^{b}. LORENZO DE’ MEDICI VOL. II. LORENZO DE’ MEDICI _THE MAGNIFICENT_ BY ALFRED VON REUMONT _TRANSLATED from THE GERMAN by ROBERT HARRISON_ IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1876 [_All rights reserved_] CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. FOURTH BOOK—_continued_. SECOND PART. TIME OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT. CHAPTER VI. LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AS A POET. PAGE Lorenzo’s Letter to Don Federigo of Aragon accompanying a Collection of Old Italian Poems—Opinions on Italian Poetry—The Poets of the Thirteenth Century—Dante and Successors—The Italian Vulgar Tongue—Lorenzo’s Position in Literature—Influence of Antiquity and the Dantesque Period—The Feeling for Nature in Lorenzo’s Poetry—The Love Poems—Lucrezia Donati—The Nature of Love—Lorenzo’s Sonnets—Idylls—‘Corinto’—‘La Nencia da Barberino’—‘Ambra’—‘The Hawking Party’ and ‘I Beoni’—Prevalence of the Burlesque—Dance and Carnaval Songs—Carnaval Companies—Mystery-Play of St. John and St. Paul—Spiritual Songs 3 CHAPTER VII. MARSILIO FICINO AND CRISTOFORO LANDINO. Platonism—Ficino’s Influence on Religion and Philosophy—The Connection of Platonism with Christianity—Speculation and Reality—Marsilio Ficino and Dante—Ficino’s Works—Book on Christian Learning—Translation of Plato—‘Theologia Platonica’—Translation of Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite—Ficino’s Letters on Personal Relations—His Connection with Learned Foreigners—His Manner of life—His Advice to Lorenzo de’ Medici and to Cardinal Raffael Riario—His Picture of a Right Way of Living—Lorenzo’s Connection with Ficino—Cristoforo Landino’s Position and Labours—The Camaldulensian Discussions—Leon Battista Alberti with the Medici Brothers and their Friends in the Abbey of Camaldoli—Various Phases of the Study of Dante—Dante and the Fifteenth Century Biographies of Dante—First Edition of the ‘Divine Comedy’—Landino’s Edition, with a Commentary—Study of Dante in Landino’s Time 20 CHAPTER VIII. LUIGI PULCI AND ANGELO POLIZIANO.