His verse is not in all places equally transparent; by
the side of his most beautiful thoughts stands at times some
allegorical conceit or some sophistical trick of logic, altogether
foreign to our present taste. But the balance is on the side of
excellence.
Boccaccio, too, in his imperfectly-known Sonnets, succeeds sometimes in
giving a most powerful and effective picture of his feeling. The return
to a spot consecrated by love (Son. 22), the melancholy of spring (Son.
33), the sadness of the poet who feels himself growing old (Son. 65),
are admirably treated by him. And in the 'Ameto' he has described the
ennobling and transfiguring power of love in a manner which would
hardly be expected from the author of the 'Decameron.' In the
'Fiammetta' we have another great and minutely-painted picture of the
human soul, full of the keenest observation, though executed with
anything but uniform power, and in parts marred by the passion for
high-sounding language and by an unlucky mixture of mythological
allusions and learned quotations. The 'Fiammetta,' if we are not
mistaken, is a sort of feminine counterpart to the 'Vita Nuova' of
Dante, or at any rate owes its origin to it.
That the ancient poets, particularly the elegists, and Virgil, in the
fourth book of the Aeneid, were not without influence on the Italians
of this and the following generation is beyond a doubt; but the spring
of sentiment within the latter was nevertheless powerful and original.
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