Origin of Italian tales-Fables of Bidpai-Seven Wise Masters- Italian imitators of Boccaccio-Sacchetti-Ser Giovanni-Mas- Origin of Spiritual Romance-Legenda Aurea-Contes Dévots--- Comic Romance-Works of Rabelais-Vita di Bertoldo-Don HISTORY OF FICTION. CHAPTER VII. RIGIN OF ITALIAN TALES.-FABLES OF BIDPAI. -SEVEN WISE MASTERS.- -GESTA ROMANORUM. CONTES ET FA OF BLIAUX.CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE.-DECAMERON BOCCACCIO. I'duced the earliest and finest specimens of romantic T seems not a little remarkable that Italy, which pro poetry, should scarcely have furnished a single prose romance of chivalry. This is the more remarkable, as the Italians seem to have been soon and intimately acquainted with the works of the latter description produced among the neighbouring nations. Nor does this knowledge appear merely from the poems of Pulci and Boiardo, but from the authors of a period still more remote, in whom we meet with innumerable allusions to incidents related in the tales of chivalry. Dante represents the perusal of the story of Lancelot, as conducting Paolo and Francesca al doloroso passo (Inf. c. 5), and elsewhere shows his acquaintance with the fabulous stories of Arthur and Charlemagne (Inf. c. 31 and 32, Parad. c. 16 and 18). Petrarch also appears to have been familiar with the exploits of Tristan and Lancelot (Trionfi, &c.). In the Cento Novelle Antiche there exists the story of King Meliadus and the Knight without Fear; as also of the Lady of Scalot, who died for love of Lancelot du Lac. There, too, the passion of Yseult and the phrensy of Tristan are recorded; and in the sixth tale of the tenth day of the Decameron, we are told that a Florentine gentleman had two daughters, one |