BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The number of books which may be usefully consulted on various points of Italian literature is very considerable. Only the most important can be named here, and those for the most part such as are written in English or Italian, and fall strictly under the heads of literary history or bibliography, or standard editions with indispensable commentaries. Many books not referable to any of these classes, such as Burckhardt's Cicerone, Des Brosses's Letters, or Dennistoun's Lives of the Dukes of Urbino, are incidentally of high value, but cannot be enumerated in a bibliographical list. Some few biographies, however, have been added which may be deemed essential. The dates given are in general those of the best or most accessible editions. Some of the most important are out of print.
GENERAL COLLECTIONS OF ITALIAN AUTHORS
D'Ancona and Bacci, Manuale della Letteratura italiana, 5 vols. 1893–95. A most admirable selection, both for its soundness of judgment and its comprehensiveness. The notices of the various authors prefixed to the selections are excellent from the biographical and bibliographical points of view, and also from the critical when criticism is sufficiently full, which is not always the case.—Cantù, La Letteratura italiana esposta, &c., 1851, and Morandi, Antologia, 1893, are inferior to D'Ancona and Bacci, yet deserve attention.
GENERAL HISTORIES
Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura italiana, &c., 1822. The Italian literary historian par excellence, characterised at pp. 295, 296 of this book. There is a continuation by Lombardi.—Sismondi,
