— Aiicona, Alessaudio Anctulusia
Tin: .IKWISII ENCYCLOl'KDIA
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relations of friendship with Carlo Luigi Fariiii, and In the Soeietii Nsizionale (Xiilioiial Society) he re)>reWhen C'avnur's eonipatriots deseiiteil Tuseaiiy. eided toolTer this statesman liis Imst by the sculptor Velo, it was Alessandro d'Ancona who was selected similar honor to make the presentation speech. was conferred upon him at the close of the Crimean war. when the i)ariots of Tuscany jircscnted General
I
l,a JIarmora with a sword. On the fall of the government of Leojjold II. in
Tuscany (April 18o9), D'Ancona out his
27, set
for Florence former home
and arrivini; assumed the
there liiiin-
lili- post of secretary of the Second Army Corps of central Italy. But his friends
soon Alessaudri' d'Anconu.
"
found
more
suitable
oeeuiiation
for him; ly after
immediate-
tlie treaty of Vilhifranca he was given the editorship of the advanced Liberal journal " La Xazione." which had been founded by Ricasoli and Salvaguuoli. In spite of all his political activity. D'Ancona still f(]und time to pursue his philological studies, and, thr<iughthe ellortsof his friend Salvagnuoli, he was, in ISlio. iippoinled deputy-professor of Italian literature at the university of his native town, Pisa. The othcial oci'upant of this chair, though he never actually lectured, was the celebrated critic De Sanctis, whose full successor D'Ancona became the year following. His entire work, after IJ^lil. lay in the field of jihilology, his researches being directed to the origin and gradual development of Italian liteniture. I)'An<'oiia's position among the ])liilologists of Italy is a most pronnnent one, and is to be measured not only by the actual importance of Ins works, but aliove all by the new standard, in scope and method, set by him and a few of his contemporaries, suchas Carducci, Comparctti, and JIussatia. Before the advent of these men the study of the medieval Italian te.ts was, it is true, zealously pursued; but the criterion in the treatment of these texts was the individual eclecticism, the esthetic taste, or the private ends of the conunentator. The seientitic methods of philological investigation recently inaugurated in Germany were as yet unknown in Italy (Ihongh an exception must be made in the case of " Kmiliani-tJiudici), and the "historical point of view was entirely neglected by men of such erudition even Espeas FanfaiH and the poet Giacomo Leojiardi. cially was this the case with the most absorbing of topics in Italian literature, that of Dante. All those who had literary, |>olitieal. or reli,gious theories to defend or refute sought in Dante (and invariably found there) corroborative arguments (see especially Gabriele Uossetti, " Lo Spirito Antipapale "), Ali'ssandro d'Ancona was in every way prepared to join the small circle of literary historians to whom this revolution in the methods As a Phi- of investigation was due. His first lologist. work, the study of the life and works of Campanella, already mentioned, tliongh written when he was a mere youth, was a thorough, impartial disquisition upon the literary value, the political and religious ideas of
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the unfortunate Dominican. The cs,say paved the way for the work which D'Ancona pui)lished soon afterward, "Opeie di Tomnuiso Campanella" (2 vols,, Turin, ls,')4), the ba.sis of all subseipient researches concerning Campanella. Vhen. therefore, under the direction of F. Zandirini, the two serial ind)lications of Old Italian texts were begun, the "Collezioiie di Antichc S<fitlure Ineilite o Uare (Collection of Old Works, either Cnpublished or Hare; indilished by ><islri, at I'isa), and the " Seelta di Ciiriosita" (Collection of Curious Works; published at Bologna, by Homagnolii. D'Ancona was among the tirst contributors. In the formerof these two collections there appeared his edition of Agostino Velletri's "Storia di (Jinevm degli Almieri" (IHOii). a study of the Latin work. "Atlila Flagellum Dei" (l^'()4). and an essay on the Seven Wise Men ("II Libro del Sette Savi"" 1H()4); and in the latter he published several medieval legends, among which may be here mentioned those of .Iinias Isearlot (" La Leggenda di Vcrgogna. c Quella di Giuda I.seariotc," lHt)9)and of Adam and Eve ("La Leggenda d'Adamo
ed Eva." 1870).
The iihilcilogical researches pursued by D'Ancona com|)rise the wholi' field of early Italian literature. He entered into disipMsitions on the various classes of the folk-lore material it.self and itsappearanceand further development in Italy, as well as upon the form, ])opular or "learned," which the malc'rial finally assumed; but he studied, too. the individual works of the more cultured medieval writers. lu 187o he imlilished a work on the early popular jioetry of Italy. "Le Antiche Kiine Volgari. Secondo la Lczione del Codicc Vaticano Mli);!" lAiicient I'optdar Poems, from the Vatican Manuscript Xo. 81i):i; published at Bologna); in 1878 appeared another, "La Poesia Popolare Itidiana" (Popular Italian Poetry; published at Leghorn); in 1881 he wrote his book on the popular songs of the ]irovince of Reggio (" Canti del Pojiolo Keggino." published at X'aples); and finally, in 1889, he pidilished still another work on the ])opular ]ioetry of Italy (" Poeinetti Popolari llaliani," pulilislied at Bologna), the various introductions to which "are written" to use tiie words of another eminent ))hilologist "with as much science as taste " (see Gaston Paris, in " Ro-
——
mania,"
xviii, .508).
An
essay on a popular spiritual
drama of Tuscany, a .sort of "May-festival, which D'Ancona had written in 1869, gave rise to a more elaborate work concerning religious di-amatie ]ierformances, or, as they are more popularly called, "mysteries," of Italy: "Sacre Hapiiresontazioni del Secoli XIV.. XV., e XVI." (Sacred Performances of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries; 3 vols., Florence, 1872); and this was followed, in 1877, by his work on the origin of Italian dmniatic literature, which the author ascribes to these very religious plays ("Origiiu' del Teatro in Italia," jiid)lislie(l lit Florence). Ill this field of research may be classed also D'Aneona's work on the original .sources of the " Novellino, " where the atithor reviews all the " novella material " to u: found in the ancient literaturesof the world ("Fonti del Xovellino," ))ublished in 1873) also his " Due Farse del Secolo XVI." (Two Farces of the Sixteenth Century; Bologna, 1882), a noteworthy addition to the history of Italian
literature.
In the fielil of what is termed the "higher literary history" in thi- study of belles-lettres too, D'Aneona's work occupies a very important position. His contribution to the Dante literature, besides a ftfw articles of minor length, consists of only two volumes, his edition of "Vita Xuova " (The Xcw Life), Pisa, 1872 (2d ed.. 1884), and his study of
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