Latin eclogues, will be found printed from MS. in his Poesie volgari e latine (ed.  A. Solerti, Bologna, 1894), while full accounts of both will be found in the essays contributed by G. Mazzoni and A. Campani to the Studi su M. M. Boiardo, edited by N. Campanini (Bologna, 1894).  There can be no doubt that the court of Lorenzo was full of pastoral experiments in the vernacular for some time before the publication mentioned above.

[33] Having regard to the general character of the Ameto, I am not sure that it might not be possible to find some hidden meaning in the poem in question, if one were challenged to do so.  The allegory is, however, mostly of the abstract kind, and the eclogue can hardly conceal allusions to any actual events.

[34] A very useful and representative, though of course by no means complete, collection is that by G. Ferrario, in the ‘Classici italiani.’

[35] Castiglione also figured among the Latin eclogists of his day, and the influence of his Alcon is even traced by Saintsbury in Lycidas (Earlier Renaissance, p. 34).

[36] It is said to have been by way of penance for having written the Vendemmiatore that he later undertook the composition of the Lagrime di San Pietro, a lengthy religious poem, which remained unfinished at his death in 1568.

[37] La Beca is ascribed by mistake to Luca Pulci in the first edition of Symonds’ Renaissance.

[38] The best imitation is said to be the Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo by Francesco Baldovini (1643-1700), which is graceful, though rather more satiric in tone than its model.

[39] It differs, however, from most poems of the sort, in that the langnage of the fisher craft in Italy was capable of the same wantonly double meaning as was suggested to English writers by the name and terms of the noble art of venery.  This serves to differentiate it from the style of pastoral, and suggests that we should rather class it along with such works as Berni’s Caccia d’amore.

[40] It is occasionally traceable in the French pastourelles, but that form of courtly composition never became popular south of the Alps.  Its vogue passed completely with the decline of Provencal tradition.  D’Ancona quotes one Italian example of the thirteenth century, the work of a Florentine, Ciacco dell’ Anguillaja.  It begins gracefully enough: 

  O gemma leziosa,
    Adorna villanella,
    Che se’ piu virtudiosa
    Che non se ne favella,
    Per la virtude ch’ hai
    Per grazia del Signore,
    Aiutami, che sai
    Che son tuo servo, amore.

[41] Further evidence of the popularity of this poem will be found in the existence of a religious parody beginning: 

  O vaghe di Gesu, o verginelle,
    Dove n’ andate si leggiadre e belle?

(Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari, &c., Firenze, 1863, p. 105.) It is founded on the fourteenth ceutury, not on the popular, version.