civili di Francia (1631), in fifteen books; and Guido Bentivoglio[1] (1579-1644), author of a history in twenty-four books, Della Guerra di Fiandra (1632-9). Sarpi's great work is not free from prejudice and passion, yet is an invaluable contribution to history, based on numerous contemporary sources, and written in a style which is clear, exact, and lightened by a vein of genial irony. D'Avila's history was translated into many other languages, and was one of the works most studied and admired by Clarendon. According to the classical Italian tradition, it is elaborate in its descriptions and very full in its report of councils, and of the pros and cons advanced—an example that Clarendon, statesman as well as historian, was able to follow. Bentivoglio was a great admirer of Marino, of whose Sampogna he exclaims, "O che vena! O che purità! O che Pellegrini concetti!" And his own style is not free from antitheses, affectations, and what the French call the "cheville," the use of otiose epithets to secure balance and rhythm. It is, however, clear and easy.
Germany.
While the poetry of the Renaissance was expiring in Italy in the scintillating extravagances of Germany. Marino and his school, and in the tumid grandeur of Chiabrera's classical odes, it was making its first endeavour to find a footing in
- ↑ Della Guerra, &c., Colonia, 1632-9. Class. It., tt. 182-188, 1804. Englished by Henry Earl of Monmouth, London, 1654.
