Note 299 — Chapter IV

See above, p. 212. The literary hesitations of an age as yet uncertain of its aim might be illustrated from these romances. Of Ippolito e Leonora we have a prose, an ottava rima, and a Latin version. Of Griselda we have Boccaccio's Italian, and Petrarch's Latin prose, in addition to the anonymous ottava rima version. Of the Principe di Salerno we have Boccaccio's Italian, and Lionardo Bruni's Latin versions in prose, together with Filippo Beroaldo's Latin elegiacs, Francesco di Michele Accolti's terza rima and Benivieni's octave stanzas. Lami in his Novelle letterarie (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1859) prints an Italian novella on the same story, which he judges anterior to the Decameron. Later on, Annibal Guasco produced another ottava rima version; and the tale was used by several playwrights in the composition of tragedies.