Excerpt from A History of Italian Literature Prom causes which will appear in the course of this history, many of the most gifted Italians wrote in Latin. Prom Petrarch down to Nicius Erythrzeus a succession of books which would have adorned the vernacular literature it they had belonged to it, appeared in the common idiom of scholars. Petrarch's Cansom'ere, as respects mere dimension, is as nothing to the mass of his Latin works. Politian writes just enough Italian to prove that he might have revived Boccaccio or antici pated Ariosto. Pontano, one of the brightest intellects of Inly, writes entirely in Latin. To exclude the Latin books of such men entirely from consideration is im possible; but they cannot be adequately treated in a professed history of vernacular literature; and much else of deep significance must be passed over without a hint of its existence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.