Simultaneously with this new Platonic movement there came a great revival of Italian literature, alike in poetry and in prose; what Carducci calls _il rinascimento della vita italiana nella forma classica_. The earlier humanists had scorned, or at least neglected the language of Dante; and the circle that surrounded Lorenzo was undoubtedly instrumental in this Italian reaction. Cristoforo Landini, one of the principal members of the Platonic Academy, now wrote the first Renaissance commentary upon the _Divina Commedia_; Leo Battista Alberti, also a leader in these Platonic disputations, defended the dignity of the Italian language, as Dante himself had done in an earlier day. Lorenzo himself compiled the so-called _Raccolta Aragonese_ of early Italian lyrics, and sent them to Frederick of Aragon, together with a letter full of enthusiasm for the Tuscan tongue, and with critical remarks on the individual poets of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Upon the popular poetry of Tuscany Lorenzo himself, and his favourite Angelo Ambrogini of Montepulciano, better known as Poliziano, founded a new school of Italian song. Luigi Pulci, the gay scoffer and cynical sceptic, entertained the festive gatherings in the Medicean palace with his wild tales, and, in his _Morgante Maggiore_, was practically the first to work up the popular legends of Orlando and the Paladins into a noteworthy poem--a poem of which Savonarola and his followers were afterwards to burn every copy that fell into their hands.