Note 811 — Chapter I · THE EQUALISATION OF CLASSES.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
Dante, Convito, nearly the whole Trattato, iv., and elsewhere. Brunetto Latini says (Il tesoro, lib. i. p. ii. cap. 50, ed. Chabaille, p. 343): ‘De ce (la vertu) nasqui premierement la nobleté de gentil gent, non pas de ses ancêtres;’ and he warns men (lib. ii. p. ii. cap. 196, p. 440) that they may lose true nobility by bad actions. Similarly Petrarch, de rem. utr. fort. lib. i. dial. xvii.: ‘Verus nobilis non nascitur, sed fit.’