Its plan, and the ideas on which it is based, belong to the
Middle Ages, and appeal to our interest only historically; but it is
nevertheless the beginning of all modern poetry, through the power and
richness shown in the description of human nature in every shape and
attitude. From this time forward poetry may have experienced unequal
fortunes, and may show, for half a century together, a so-called
relapse. But its nobler and more vital principle was saved for ever;
and whenever in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and in the beginning of the
sixteenth centuries, an original mind devotes himself to it, he
represents a more advanced stage than any poet out of Italy, given--
what is certainly always easy to settle satisfactorily--an equality of
natural gifts to start with.
Here, as in other things in Italy, culture--to which poetry belongs--
precedes the visual arts and, in fact, gives them their chief impulse.
More than a century elapsed before the spiritual element in painting
and sculpture attained a power of expression in any way analogous to
that of the 'Divine Comedy.' How far the same rule holds good for the
artistic development of other nations, and of what importance the whole
question may be, does not concern us here. For Italian civilization it
is of decisive weight.
The position to be assigned to Petrarch in this respect must be settled
by the many readers of the poet.
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