Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, tells us that the great poet, in later life, was ashamed of this work of his youth. Such a statement hardly seems reconcilable with the allusions to it made or implied in the _Commedia_; but it is true that the _Vita Nuova_ is a book which only youth could have produced, and which must chiefly remain sacred to the young; to each of whom the figure of Beatrice, less lifelike than lovelike, will seem the friend of his own heart. Nor is this, perhaps, its least praise. To tax its author with effeminacy on account of the extreme sensitiveness evinced by this narrative of his love, would be manifestly unjust, when we find that, though love alone is the theme of the _Vita Nuova_, war already ranked among its author’s experiences at the period to which it relates. In the year 1289, the one preceding the death of Beatrice, Dante served with the foremost cavalry in the great battle of Campaldino, on the eleventh of June, when the Florentines defeated the people of Arezzo. In the autumn of the next year, 1290, when for him, by the death of Beatrice, the city as he says “sat solitary,” such refuge as he might find from his grief was sought in action and danger: for we learn from the _Commedia_ (Hell, C. xxi.) that he served in the war then waged by Florence upon Pisa, and was present at the surrender of Caprona. He says, using the reminiscence to give life to a description, in his great way:— “I’ve seen the troops out of Caprona go On terms, affrighted thus, when on the spot They found themselves with foemen compass’d so.” (CAYLEY’S _Translation_.) A word should be said here of the title of Dante’s autobiography. The adjective _Nuovo_, _nuova_, or _Novello_, _novella_, literally _New_, is often used by Dante and other early writers in the sense of _young_. This has induced some editors of the _Vita Nuova_ to explain the title as meaning _Early Life_. I should be glad on some accounts to adopt this supposition, as everything is a gain which increases clearness to the modern reader; but on consideration I think the more mystical interpretation of the words, as _New Life_ (in reference to that revulsion of his being which Dante so minutely describes as having occurred simultaneously with his first sight of Beatrice), appears the primary one, and therefore the most necessary to be given in a translation. The probability may be that both were meant, but this I cannot convey.[3]