Note 80 — Chapter I

Sismondi (Literature of the South of Europe) has observed of the greatest epic of the Middle Age, that 'Dante, in common with many fathers of the Church, under the supposition that paganism, in the persons of the infernal gods, represented the fallen angels, has made no scruple to adopt its fables.' Tasso, at a later period, introduces the deities of heathendom. In the Gerusalemme Liberata they sit in council to frustrate the plans and destroy the forces of the Christian leaders before Jerusalem (iv). Ismeno, a powerful magician in the ranks of the Turks, brings up a host of diabolic allies to guard the wood which supplied the infidels with materials for carrying on the siege of the city (xiii.). And the masterpieces of art of Guido or Raffaelle, which excite at once admiration and despair in their modern disciples, consecrated and immortalised the vulgar superstition.