detail though they were, did not offer any comprehensive view even of a reign and much less of a century. They failed to understand the essential continuity of the history of all countries, and, while not making the mistake of considering the Romans as their ancestors, they could not conceive history and society as immanent in man. Petrarch, on the contrary, considers himself perfectly Roman, although his lyrics are almost the first assertion of modern individualism. His familiarity with Livy, Cicero, Virgil, gave him an appreciation of classical Latin that led him to consider that of Dante barbarous. What matters to him is the form in which thoughts are expressed, not the thoughts themselves; he wanted art for art’s sake. Fortunately, his genius and the fervour of his cult for Rome sometimes animates his consciousness of the continuity of the past with the present. In the _Canzone di Signori d’Italia_ the new Italy that was trying to recover her Roman and Latin tradition appears as a fully grown personality. Guelphs and Ghibellines, Romans and Florentines have disappeared, and Italy speaks the proud language of the Queen of Civilisation. As Francesco De Sanctis puts it, the poet is an Italian, conscious of the superiority of his race. Marius is mentioned as if he were an almost contemporary person. So deeply does the young poet feel the classical world that henceforth he considers the heroes of Greece and Rome as his ancestors. With personal pride he assumes the military glories of Marius and Cæsar no less than the ample rhetoric of Cicero. And in this assumption of a ready-made glory as Italy’s inherent right, cause of much subsequent political and moral weakness, we may find the first signs of the contribution that modern Italy is perhaps now on the verge of bringing to civilisation. It is therefore natural that Fascism should attack with energy the negative side of the legacy of Humanism, the Italian fondness for rhetoric, union of lofty words and mean deeds, while accepting and proclaiming the historical conception that links man to the generations past and future.