Bella and the struggles of the Neri and Bianchi.  The comparison of Dino Compagni with any contemporary annalist in Italy shows that here again, in these pages, a new spirit has arisen.  Muratori, proud to print them for the first time in 1726, put them on a level with the ’Commentaries of Caesar’; Giordani welcomed their author as a second Sallust.  The political sagacity and scientific penetration, possessed in so high a degree by the Florentines, appear in full maturity.  Compagni’s ‘Chronicle’ heads a long list of similar monographs, unique in the literature of a single city.[2]

[1] The apostrophes to the citizens of Florence at large, and the imprecations on some of the worst offenders among the party-leaders (especially in book ii. on the occasion of the calamities of 1301) are conceived and uttered in the style of Dante.

[2] Among these I may here mention Gino Capponi’s history of the Ciompi Rebellion, Giovanni Cavalcanti’s memoirs of the period between 1420 and 1452, Leo Battista Alberti’s narrative of Porcari’s attempt upon the life of Nicholas V., Vespasiano’s ‘Biographies,’ and Poliziano’s ‘Essay on the Pazzi Conspiracy.’  Gino Capponi, born about 1350, was Prior in 1396, and Gonfalonier of Justice in 1401 and 1418; he died in 1421.  Giovanni Cavalcanti was a zealous admirer of Cosimo de’ Medici; he composed his ‘Chronicle’ in the prison of the Stinche, where he was unjustly incarcerated for a debt to the Commune of Florence.  Vespasiano da Bisticci contributed a series of most valuable portraits to the literature of Italy:  all the great men of his time are there delineated with a simplicity that is the sign of absolute sincerity, Poliziano was present at the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici in the Florentine Duomo.  The historians of the sixteenth century will be noticed together further on.

The arguments against the authenticity of Dino Compagni’s ‘Chronicle’ may be arranged in three groups.  The first concerns the man himself.  It is urged that, with the exception of his offices as Prior and Gonfalonier, we have no evidence of his political activity, beyond what is furnished by the disputed ‘Chronicle.’  According to his own account, Dino played a part of the first importance in the complicated events of 1280-1312.  Yet he is not mentioned by Giovanni Villani, by Filippo Vallani, or by Dante.  There is no record of his death, except a MS. note in the Magliabecchian Codex of his ‘Chronicle’ of the date 1514.[1] He is known in literature as the author of a few lyrics and an oration to Pope John XXII., the style of which is so rough and mediaeval as to make it incredible that the same writer should have composed the masterly paragraphs of the ’Chronicle.’[2] The second group of arguments affects the substance of the ‘Chronicle’ itself.  Though Dino was Prior when Charles of Valois entered Florence, he records that event under the date of Sunday the fourth of November, whereas