art of the canzone is contained, the arrangement of rhymes; the work breaking off at the point where Dante was about to treat of the number of lines and syllables in the stanza. It is noteworthy that, though he illustrates his practical rules by examples from the Provençal troubadours, his Italian predecessors and contemporaries, and his own canzoni, the great Latin poets are set up as models: “The more closely we imitate these, the more correctly we write poetry” (ii. 4). There is some indication that the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ would have been dedicated to Cino da Pistoia as the _Vita Nuova_ had been to Guido Cavalcanti. DATE OF COMPOSITION.--The _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ was probably written about the same time as the _Convivio_ or slightly earlier. From a mention of the Marquis Giovanni of Monferrato apparently as living (_V. E._ i. 12), who died in January (?) 1305, it has been supposed that Book i. cannot be much later than the beginning of that year. Dante’s evident friendly feeling for Bologna (which altered before he wrote the _Commedia_) may be connected with the time when the Florentine exiles were welcomed in that city, before the decree of expulsion in 1306. It has sometimes been thought that Book ii. may be a much later piece of work, produced as a poetical textbook at Ravenna in Dante’s last years, and broken off, as Boccaccio suggests, by his death. Nevertheless, when the tone of the work and the probable dates of the lyrics quoted be taken into account, it seems more probable that what we have of the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ was written between 1304 and 1306; it represents part of the labours which were interrupted by the advent of Henry VII., or abandoned when the poet turned to the _Divina Commedia_. 2. _The “Monarchia”_