Note 630 — Chapter XXV · HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM
Reading edition
Dante, Dedicatio of Paradiso to Can Grande (Opere Latine, ed. Giuliani, ii. 44) ‘est comoedia genus quoddam poeticae narrationis.... Differt ergo a tragoedia in materia per hoc quod tragoedia in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis ... comoedia vero inchoat asperitatem alicuius rei, sed eius materia prospere terminatur.’ P. Toynbee (Romania, xxvi. 542) shows that Dante substantially owed these definitions to the Magnae Derivationes of the late twelfth-century writer, Uguccione da Pisa.