1. ITALIAN LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS.--The fall of the Western Empire,
the invasions of the northern tribes, and the subsequent wars and
calamities, did not entirely extinguish the fire of genius in Italy. As we
have seen, the Crusades had opened the East and revealed to Europe its
literary and artistic treasures; the Arabs had established a celebrated
school of medicine in Salerno, and had made known the ancient classics; a
school of jurisprudence was opened in Bologna, where Roman law was
expounded by eminent lecturers; and the spirit of chivalry, while it
softened and refined human character, awoke the desire of distinction in
arms and poetry. The origin of the Italian republics, giving scope to
individual agency, marked another era in civilization; while the
appearance of the Italian language quickened the national mind and led to
a new literature. The spirit of freedom, awakened as early as the eleventh
century, received new life in the twelfth, when the Lombard cities,
becoming independent, formed a powerful league against Frederick
Barbarossa. The instinct of self-defense thus developed increased the
necessity of education. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
Italian literature acquired its national character and rose to its highest
splendor, through the writings of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose
influence has been more or less felt in succeeding centuries.
The literary history of Italy may be divided into three periods, each of
which presents two distinct phases, one of progress and one of decline.
The first period, extending from 1100 to 1475, embraces the origin of the
literature, its development through the works of Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and its first
decline in the fifteenth, when it was supplanted by the absorbing study of
the Greek and Latin classics.
The second period, commencing 1475, embraces the age of Lorenzo de' Medici
and Leo X., when literature began to revive; the age of Ariosto, Tasso,
Machiavelli, and Galileo, when it reached its meridian splendor; its
subsequent decline, through the school of Marini; and its last revival
towards the close of the seventeenth century.
The third period, extending from the close of the seventeenth century to
the present time, includes the development of Italian literature, its
decline under French influence, and its subsequent national tendency,
through the writings of Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Parini, Monti,
Manzoni, and Leopardi.
2. THE DIALECTS.--The dialects of the ancient tribes inhabiting the
peninsula early came in contact with the rustic Latin, and were moulded
into new tongues, which, at a later period, were again modified by the
influence of the barbarians who successively invaded the country. These
tongues, elaborated by the action of centuries, are still in use,
especially with the lower classes, and many of them have a literature of
their own, with grammars and dictionaries. The more important of these
dialects are divided into three groups: 1st. The Northern, including the
Ligurian, Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetian, and Emilian. 2d. The Central,
containing the Tuscan, Umbrian, the dialects of the Marches and of the
Roman Provinces. 3d. The Southern, embracing those of the Neapolitan
provinces and of Sicily. Each is distinguished from the other and from the
true Italian, although they all rest on a common basis, the rustic Latin,
the plebeian tongue of the Romans, as distinct from the official and
literary tongue.
3. THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE.--The Tuscan or Florentine dialect, which early
became the literary language of Italy, was the result of the natural
development of the popular Latin and a native dialect probably akin to the
rustic Roman idiom. Tuscany suffering comparatively little from foreign
invasion, the language lost none of its purity, and remained free from
heterogeneous elements. The great writers, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio,
who appeared so early, promoted its perfection, secured its prevailing
influence, and gave it a national character. Hence, in the literature
there is no old Italian as distinct from the modern; the language of Dante
continues to be that of modern writers, and becomes more perfect the more
it approaches the standard fixed by the great masters of the fourteenth
century. Of this language it may he said that for flexibility,
copiousness, freedom of construction, and harmony and beauty of sound, it
is the most perfect of all the idioms of the Neo-Latin or Romanic tongues.