run to seed. In others appears the imitation of Italian
models which was to supplant the ancient fashion.
Francisco Imperial, a worshiper of Dante, and other
Andalusians such as Ruy Páez de Ribera, Pero González de
Uceda and Ferrán Manuel de Lando, strove to introduce
Italian meters and ideas. They first employed the Italian
hendecasyllable, although it did not become acclimated
till the days of Boscán. They likewise cultivated the
_metro de arte mayor_, which later became so prominent
(see below, p. lxxv ff.). But the interest of the poets of
the _Cancionero de Baena_ is mainly historical. In
spite of many an illuminating side-light on manners,
of political invective and an occasional glint of
imagination, the amorous platitudes and wire-drawn
love-contests of the Galician school, the stiff allegories
of the Italianates leave us cold. It was a transition
period and the most talented were unable to master the
undeveloped poetic language. page xv


The same may be said, in general, of the whole fifteenth
century. Although the language became greatly clarified
toward 1500 it was not yet ready for masterly original
work in verse. Invaded by a flood of Latinisms, springing
from a novel and undigested humanism, encumbered still
with archaic words and set phrases left over from the
Galicians, it required purification at the hands of the
real poets and scholars of the sixteenth century. The
poetry of the fifteenth is inferior to the best prose of
the same epoch; it is not old enough to be quaint and not