Dante discloses himself to us in three different aspects. At first he sings of the morning of life; and, stricken with gentle melancholy at the sight of Beatrice, he utters his amorous lay in sonnets and cantos. At her death his spirit soars much higher, and then it was that he wrote his great book entitled " Della Monarchia," a learned treatise on constitutions, in which, with an admixture of social and theological science, he discoursed on the origin of power and of society. The poet of the " Rime " and the " Vita Nuova," which are the most graceful, youthful emanations from the tenderest soul and the greatest genius of modern times, disappeared in the austere thinker trying to define the limit between the power of the Emperor and that of the Pope.

Until Dante's time the Italian, or vulgar tongue, as it was called, was only used by the Tuscans for business communications, and by common people ; but the poet, by his use of the popular idiom, proved that the loftiest ideas and the noblest thoughts could find expression in it as well as in Latin. This was the language in which he wrote the " Convito" as well as the Volgari Eloquio." Sent as ambassador to Rome, the Papal Court left an indelible impression upon his mind, and it was at Rome that he wrote the first stanzas of the " Divina Commedia," the recollections of his early youth bringing back the life-blood to his heart, and evoking the radiant image of his Beatrice.

While not attempting to bring into relief the infinite depth and tenderness of this great work, I would fain point out the methodical manner in which it is written. Thus, all the characters are taken from real life, though Dante intends them to be allegorical, and the events in which they take part express the ideas by which they are actuated. The work is divided into three parts Hell, Purgatory, Paradise-each containing a mystical teaching, the purport of which is explained by the poet himself in the letter which he wrote to Can Grande della Scala, dedicating the work to him out of gratitude for his hospitality.

Upwards of three thousand commentators, beginning with Boccaccio, Jacopo della Lena, and Grandenigo, have endeavored, with more or less success, to expound the meaning of the poem ; but the most trustworthy exposition is that of his son Jacopo, who may be supposed to have known more about his father's views than any one else. The best likeness of him whom. Guido da Polenta styles the " altissimo poeta " is probably that in the dim frescoes of the Bargello.

GIOVANNI VILLANI. -(1270-1348.)

The history of Florence may be said to have commenced with two writers, Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani, both born in the second half of the thirteenth century.

Villani was a merchant by profession, and, like Dante and so many others, he went to Rome in the year 1300, at the time of the indulgence which had been decreed by Boniface VIII. He was so impressed by what he saw that he determined to write a book about his native city, and in the preface he says that " the city of Florence, the daughter and handmaid of Rome, being destined for great fame, it is meet to set forth all that relates to her origin, and thus, by the grace of Jesus Christ, in this year 1300, I, safely returned from Rome, did begin to compile this book in the fear of God, and of the blessed John, my patron (saint)."

Villani was the director of the mint (La Zecca) at Florence, and he had three times been a member of the Signoria, and five times ambassador to different states. He had occupied all kinds of posts, having had the superintendence of the erection of the rain-parts of Florence, and having been selected to negotiate peace between Florence and Pisa, and afterwards between Lucca and his native city ; while, when fighting against the famous Castruccio, he was made prisoner and detained as a hostage by Martino della Scala. He was a partisan of the Guelphs and a devoted son of the Church, though at the same time an advocate for communal rights; but he was less successful as a banker-merchant, his house, like those of the Acciaiuoli, the Bonaccorsi, the Cocchi, and the Corsini, having been involved in the disasters caused by the failures of the Peruzzi and the Bardi. He was completely ruined, and, in accordance with the corporation laws then in force, underwent a long term of imprisonment at Florence.

His chronicles throw no little light upon the economic side of Florence during the fourteenth century, and he may be described as the first of the political economists, one passage in his works telling us of his wish " to let posterity have some conception of the wealth of the community, and of the causes which led up to it, so that in future men of knowledge may be able to increase the prosperity of Florence." He died of the plague in 1348, and his brother Matteo, an economist like himself, went on with his history.

PASSAVANTI. -(1297-1357.)

" Specchio della, Vera Penitenza" (" Mirror of the True Penitence ") such is the singular title of Jacopo Passavanti's work, which became, from a philological point of view, one of the most remarkable exemplars of the Italian language. It has nothing to recommend it in the way of imagination, for it is little more than a compilation from the Fathers of the Church, but it was no small achievement, in the first part of the fourteenth century, to express in the scarcely formed vulgar tongue the various shades of thought in a style at once pure, elegant, and graceful. These are the saving qualities of Passavanti's work.

He was of a noble Florentine family, and at the age of twenty joined the Dominican order at Santa Maria, Novella, and soon gained a celebrity for learning and virtue. So high were the hopes entertained of him that the fathers sent him, in accordance with the custom of the day, to complete his studies at the University of Paris ; Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch being among the foreign celebrities who sojourned there. Passavanti, on his return front Paris, taught theology at Pisa, Siena, and Rome, and after attaining to the highest dignities in his order, and becoming in succession Vicar-General of Florence and Bishop of Monte Cassino, he died on the 15th of June, 1357.

He was best known to the Florentines as Prior of Santa Maria Novella, and he it was who commissioned Memmi and Gaddi to paint the famous frescoes in the church of that monastery where his bones are laid. An interesting quotation, as showing the place which Passavanti's "Specchio " occupied in the literary history of the sixteenth century, is extracted from the writings of the critics who were called in 1573 "the deputies for the revision of Boccaccio's 'Decanieroii."' These remarks are as follow: "There was a certain Jacopo, a brother of Santa Maria. Novella, about ten years Boccaccio's junior, who, in 1351, that is, about the same time as the 'Decameron,' published a treatise on 'Penitence' in the Latin tongue, which treatise he translated himself, and partly recomposed, into the vulgar tongue. His manner is very similar to that of Boccaccio; and though be does not seem to make any attempt to be playful or amusing, the style is not devoid of delicacy. The language, too, is, for the time, pure, appropriate, sedate, and ornate, without being pretentious, and the work is unquestionably calculated to charm those who read it."

Passavanti, like so many other authors, is no longer read; but it is astonishing to find how many of his ideas have been appropriated by the most eminent writers, and his " Specchio " is more amusing, in the ordinary sense of the word, than the title would lead one to infer. Most of the anecdotes with which it abounds refer to events in Paris, and there is much good-humor about the worthy monk, who urges upon his readers an introspective examination of their consciences.