RENAISSANCE IN ITALY ITALIAN LITERATURE In Two Parts BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS AUTHOR OF STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS SKETCHES IN ITALY AND GREECE' ETC. Questa provincia pare nata per risuscitare le cose morte, come si è visto della Poesia, PART I. LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1881 [All rights reserved] PREFACE. THIS work on the Renaissance in Italy, of which I now give the last two volumes to the public, was designed and executed on the plan of an essay or analytical enquiry, rather than on that which is appropriate to a continuous history. Each of its four parts-the Age of the Despots, the Revival of Learning, the Fine Arts, and Italian Literature-stood in my mind for a section; each chapter for a paragraph; each paragraph for a sentence. At the same time, it was intended to make the first three parts subsidiary and introductory to the fourth, for which accordingly a wider space and a more minute method of treatment were reserved. The first volume was meant to explain the social and political conditions of Italy; the second to relate the exploration of the classical past which those conditions necessitated, and which determined the intellectual activity of the Italians; the third to exhibit the bias of this people toward figurative art, and briefly to touch upon its various manifestations; in order that, finally, a correct point of view might be obtained for judging of their national literature in its strength and limita |