SOURCE: de Sanctis, Francesco. “The Tuscans.” In History of Italian Literature, Vol. 1, translated by Joan Redfern, pp. 53-61. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959.

In the following excerpt, first published in Italian in 1870-71, de Sanctis offers an appreciation of Cavalcanti and describes how Dante advanced Cavalcanti's poetic descriptions of science.

It is in the technique and outward forms of his works that Cino's artistic consciousness shows itself most clearly: his main preoccupation is to develop the musical elements of the language and of verse. Never before in any other poet had the language sounded so sweetly, fined down like lovely polished marble, with every harshness and inequality rubbed away. But an artist of more profound and serious qualities than Cino was Guido Cavalcanti. He too has a perfect technique—in fact, with Cavalcanti technique is a science. He was in love with his native language, gave up every...