Stanza 59.-- Thou cool, thou cold, thou warmth, thou heat, Thou rapture's circle's central seat, Who does not meet With thee stays dead in sadness; Each day to him appears a year, Seldom his thoughts wear green bloom's gear; He doth appear Forever without gladness. Thou art most truly our heart's shine Our sun wide joy-inspiring; A sweet heart's love for all that pine, For all the sad a joyful shrine, A spring divine For the thirsty and desiring. --Tr. by Kroeger. CHAPTER V. ITALIAN LITERATURE. There was no folk poetry and no popular literature in Mediaeval Italy. There were two reasons for this: (1) Italian history, political and intellectual, attaches itself very closely to that of Rome. The traditions of classic learning never died out. Hence the Italian nation was always too learned, too literary to develop a folk literature. (2) Italy was for many centuries dominated by ecclesiastical influence, and the people's minds were full of matters of religious and scholastic philosophy, which excluded art. The Italians translated and adapted some of the epics, romances, and tales of other countries, during the earlier years of the Middle Ages; but they were written in Latin, or in a kind of French. They produced none of their own. There was no literature written in Italian before the thirteenth century. In the thirteenth century (1250) there came the first outburst of Italian literature--religious songs, love songs, dramas, and tales. In almost every part of Italy men began to write. But it was in Tuscany, in Florence, that the most remarkable literary development of this period appeared. It was of the nature chiefly of lyric and allegoric poetry. The work of this group of Tuscan poets was really the beginning of Italian literary art. Yet it was a finished art product, not at all like the beginnings of poetry in other countries. The group numbered a dozen poets of considerable power and skill. The greatest of them and the greatest of Italian poets was Dante Alighieri. In Italian mediaeval literature three names stand out far above all others. They are Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. So completely do they overshadow their contemporaries, that in making our selection of Italian literature we shall confine ourselves entirely to these three. Dante Alighieri was born at Florence, in May, 1266, and died at Ravenna in September, 1321. He had an eventful and pathetic life. He was much in public affairs. He was banished from his native city in 1302, and died in exile. His literary work is represented chiefly by the following titles: "Vita Nuova, The New Life"; "Convito, The Banquet"; "De Monarchia, A Treatise on Monarchy"; "De Vulgari Eloquio, A Treatise on the Vulgar Tongue"; and "Divina Commedia", his masterpiece and the master-work of the Middle Ages. FROM THE VITA NUOVA.