Dante's treatise _De Vulgari Eloquio_ is a case in point. With regard to
style, no foreigner can pretend to be a competent judge. Reading the
celebrated description of Florence at the opening of Dino's 'Chronicle,'
I seem indeed, for my own part, to discern a post-Boccaccian
artificiality of phrase. Still there is nothing to render it impossible
that the 'Chronicle,' as we possess it, in the texts of 1450(?) and
1514, may be a _rifacimento_ of an elder and simpler work. In that
section of my history which deals with Italian literature of the
fifteenth century, I shall have occasion to show that such remodeling of
ancient texts to suit the fashion of the time was by no means
unfrequent. The curious discrepancies between the _Trattato della
Famiglia_ as written by Alberti and as ascribed to _Pandolfini_ can only
be explained upon the hypothesis of such _rifacimento_. If the
historical inaccuracies in which the 'Chronicle' abounds are adduced as
convincing proof of its fabrication, it may be replied that the author
of so masterly a romance would naturally have been anxious to preserve a
strict accordance with documents of acknowledged validity. Consequently,
these very blunders might not unreasonably be used to combat the
hypothesis of deliberate forgery. It is remarkable, in this connection,
that only one meager reference is made to Dante by the Chronicler, who,
had he been a literary forger, would scarcely have omitted to enlarge
upon this theme. Without, therefore, venturing to express a decided
opinion on a question which still divides the most competent
Italian judges, I see no reason to despair of the problem being
ultimately solved in a way less unfavorable to Dino Compagni than
Scheffer-Boichorst and Fanfani would approve of. Considered as the
fifteenth century _rifacimento_ of an elder document, the 'Chronicle'
would lose its historical authority, but would still remain an
interesting monument of Florentine literature, and would certainly not
deserve the unqualified names of 'forgery' and 'fabrication' that have