This was a delicate subject, and though the king of
Saxony (a Catholic) says that Dante did not overstep the limits of
orthodoxy, it was on account of this part of the book that it was
condemned as heretical.[61]
Next follows the treatise _De Vulgari Eloquio_. Though we have doubts
whether we possess this book as Dante wrote it, inclining rather to think
that it is a copy in some parts textually exact, in others an abstract,
there can be no question either of its great glossological value or that
it conveys the opinions of Dante. We put it next in order, though written
later than the _Convito_, only because, like the _De Monarchia_, it is
written in Latin. It is a proof of the national instinct of Dante, and of
his confidence in his genius, that he should have chosen to write all his
greatest works in what was deemed by scholars a _patois_, but which he
more than any other man made a classic language. Had he intended the _De
Monarchia_ for a political pamphlet, he would certainly not have composed
it in the dialect of the few. The _De Vulgari Eloquio_ was to have been
in four books. Whether it was ever finished or not it is impossible to
say; but only two books have come down to us. It treats of poetizing in
the vulgar tongue, and of the different dialects of Italy. From the
particularity with which it treats of the dialect of Bologna, it has been
supposed to have been written in that city, or at least to furnish an
argument in favor of Dante's having at some time studied there.
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