not flow with gold! Far worse is the condition of those monks and hypocrites who accuse the divine art of immorality and grossness, instead of reading between the lines and seeking the sense conveyed to the understanding under veils of allegory. Truly, proceeds Boccaccio, we do well to shun the errors of Pagans; nor can it be denied that poets of antiquity have written verse abhorrent to the Christian spirit. But, Jesus Christ be praised, the faith has triumphed. Strong in the doctrines of the Gospel and the Church, the student may safely approach the masterpieces of classic literature without fearing the seductions of the Siren. [Footnote 55: 'La teologia e la poesia quasi una cosa si possono dire ... la teologia niuna altra cosa è che una poesia d'Iddio.' _Vita di Dante_, p. 59. Cf. _Comento sopra Dante_, loc. cit. p. 45. The explanation of the Muses referred to above is governed by the same determination to find philosophy in poetry.] [Footnote 56: See Petrarch's letter 'De quibusdam fictionibus Virgilii.' _Ep. Rer. Sen._ lib. iv. 4, p. 785.] [Footnote 57: See the privilege granted to Petrarch by the Roman senator in 1343, _Petr. Opp._ tom. iii. p. 6.] This argument, forming the gist of the 'Apology for Poetry' in the 'Genealogiâ Deorum,' is repeated in the 'Comment upon Dante.' It is doubly interesting, both as showing the popular opinion of poetry and the prejudices Boccaccio thought it needful to attack, and also as containing a full exposition of the allegorising theories with which humanism started. For some time after Boccaccio's death the paragraphs condensed above supplied the champions of culture with weapons to be used against their ecclesiastical and scholastic antagonists; nor was it until humanism had triumphed, that the allegorical interpretation of the ancients was finally abandoned.