Note 62 — Part III.

This is perhaps the proper place to explain the meaning of Martellian verses. They owe their name to Pier Jacopo Martelli (1665-1725), who revived them, and used them for the drama. Metrically speaking, Martellian verses are twelve-syllable lines of the Alexandrine type. These long lines had been commonly employed in Italy during the thirteenth century, before the heroic verse of eleven syllables obtained ascendancy. It is difficult to say why the Alexandrine, which Italy in the thirteenth century shared with France, died out in the former country and became the standard heroic line of the latter. Possibly the reason may be found in the Italian tendency toward double rhymes; the so-called versi piani of Dante being decasyllabic iambics with a redundant syllable rather than hendecasyllabics. Anyhow, the Alexandrine has not flourished south of the Alps. Martelli's revival did not prosper; and Carducci, in his Su' Campi di Marengo (Nuove Poesie, p. 91), is the only recent poet who has attempted them with success.