[23] In this connexion it will be remembered that Dante places Brutus and Cassius, the betrayers of Julius, in company with Judas, the betrayer of Christ, as arch-traitors in the innermost circle of hell (Inferno, xxxiv).  He was no doubt influenced in this by his philosophical Ghibelline tendencies.

[24] The evolution of this idea, suggested of course by John X. II, can be clearly traced in the mosaics at Ravenna.

[25] So Hortis (Scritti inediti di F. Petrarca, pp. 221, &c.), who combats A. W. von Schlegel’s view that the Epy of Eclogue VII stands for Avignon.

[26] This spelling was current for some centuries, Spenser among others adopting it.  Indeed, egloghe is still the prevalent form among Italian scholars.

[27] One other was discovered and published from MS. by Hortis, in his Studi sulle opere latini, p. 351.

[28] It is not impossible that Boccaccio may have begun composing eclogues before his acquaintance with Petrarch, since the influence of the poems sent by Dante to Giovanni del Virgilio has been traced in the eclogue printed by Hortis, and in an early version of the Faunus, as well as in the work of Boccaccio’s correspondent, Cecco di Mileto.

[29] So Aeneas Sylvius, in his De Remedio Amoris, after a particularly virulent tirade against women, explained:  ’De his loquor mulieribus quae turpes admittunt amores.’

[30] ‘Syncerius’ is the form used, but there can be little doubt who was intended.

[31] In the days when it was fashionable for men of learning to discuss the laws of pastoral composition, a certain northern giant fell foul of the Neapolitan’s piscatory eclogues on somewhat theoretical grounds.  Having never seen the blue smile of the bay of Naples, he suggested that the sea was an object of terror; forgetful of the monotonous setting of pastoral verse, he complained that the piscatory life offered little variety; finally, he contended that the technicalities of the craft were unfamiliar to readers—­but are we to suppose that the learned author of the Rambler was competent to tend a flock?

[32] They were at least the first to appear in print.  The contributors were Girolamo Benivieni, of Florence, and Francesco Arsocchi and Fiorino Boninsegni, of Siena.  The first possibly deserves mention as having introduced Pico della Mirandola as a character in his eclogues:  some of the poems of the last are noteworthy as having been composed as early as 1468.  There exists a poem by Luca Pulci on the story of Polyphemus and Galatea in the form of an eclogue.  Luca died in 1470.  Leo Battista Alberti, the famous architect, who died in 1472, also left a poem, which was published from MS. in 1850, with the heading ‘Egloga.’  This, however, proves not to be strictly pastoral.  Among other early ventures were ten Italian eclogues in terza rima, by Boiardo.  These, and also his ten