Note 21 — Chapter I
Reading edition
Dante's poems do not stand altogether isolated in this respect. It would be possible to cite eclogues formerly ascribed to Mussato, as also some from the pens of Giovanni de Boni of Arezzo and Cecco di Mileto, in support of the above remarks. It is significant of their independence of medieval pastoralism, that Giovanni del Virgilio repeatedly speaks of Dante as the first to write bucolic poetry since Vergil, thus ignoring the whole production from Calpurnius to Metellus.