first attained its full complexity of dramatic structure, and his allusion to Theocritus means, not that he regarded him as the father of the form, but that, after the manner of a cinquecento critic, he is seeking for authority at least among the ancients where direct precedent is not to be found.  His reference to the evolution of classical tragedy and comedy in the passage cited from his first essay shows clearly that he had in mind a process of gradual and natural development, not one of definite borrowing or artificial creation.

It appears to me, therefore, that Carducci has erred in not taking a sufficiently broad view of the lines on which literary development proceeds; and also, more specifically, in failing to recognize the importance of the distinction between the ordinary and the dramatic eclogue.  This distinction, though on the scanty evidence extant it is extremely hard to draw it with any degree of certainty, appears to me a vital point in the history of the species.  The value of Carducci’s work lies in his insistence on the influence of the regular drama, to which, perhaps on account of its very obviousness, Rossi had failed to attach sufficient importance; in his directing attention to the local Ferrarese tradition; in the admirable energy and patience with which he has collected all available evidence; and in his reprinting the interesting pastoral fragment of Giraldi Cintio.  For these he deserves the warmest thanks of all students of Italian literature; for my own part I need only refer the reader to the footnotes to the following pages as indicating in some measure the extent of my indebtedness[371].

The theatrical tendency first exhibited itself in the mere recitation of a dialogue in character, and the earliest examples of these ecloghe rappresentative are identical in form with those written merely for literary circulation.  For the dates of these external evidence unfortunately fails us almost entirely, but a fairly well-marked sequence may be established on the grounds of internal development.  Roughly, they must fall within a few years of the close of the fifteenth century, say between 1480 and 1510.  They are commonly of an allegorical nature, containing allusions to real persons, and are for the most part composed in terza rima, diversified in the more complex examples by the introduction of octaves and lyrical measures[372].  Of this primitive form is a poem by the Genoese Baldassare Taccone, bearing the superscription ‘Ecloga pastorale rapresentata nel Convivio dell’ III.  Sig’r.  Io.  Adorno, nella quale si celebra l’ amor del Co. di Cayace [Francesco Sanseverino] e di M. Chiara di Marino nuncupata la Castagnini[373].’  This piece, in which the characters represent real persons, is a mere dialogue without any semblance of action.  Aminta questions his fellow-shepherd Fileno as to the cause of his melancholy, and learns that it arises from his hopeless passion for a certain