."

This idea, which is a commonplace in the folklore of many countries,
attracted attention. Two contemporary troubadours attempted to improve
upon it. Bertran d'Alamanon said that the heart should not be divided
among the cowards, enumerated by Sordello, but given to the noble ladies
of the age: Peire Bremen proposed a division of the body. The point is
that Dante in the Purgatorio represents Sordello as showing to Virgil
the souls of those who, while singing _Salve Regina_, ask to be pardoned
for their neglect of duty and among them appear the rulers whom Sordello
had satirised in his _sirventes_. Hence it seems that it was this [105]
composition which attracted Dante's attention to Sordello. The other
important poem is the _Ensenhamen_, a didactic work of instruction upon
the manner and conduct proper to a courtier and a lover. Here, and also
in some of his lyric poems, Sordello represents the transition to a new
idea of love which was more fully developed by the school of Guido
Guinicelli and found its highest expression in Dante's lyrics and Vita
Nuova. Love is now rather a mystical idea than a direct affection for a
particular lady: the lover is swayed by a spiritual and intellectual
ideal, and the motive of physical attraction recedes to the background.
The cause of love, however, remains unchanged: love enters through the
eyes; sight is delight.

We must now turn southwards. A school of poetry had grown up in Sicily
at the court of Frederick II. No doubt he favoured those troubadours
whose animosity to the papacy had been aroused by the Albigeois crusade:
such invective as that which Guillem Figueira could pour forth would be
useful to him in his struggle against the popes. But the emperor was
himself a man of unusual culture, with a keen interest in literary and
scientific pursuits: he founded a university at Naples, collected
manuscripts and did much to make Arabic learning known to the West. He
was a poet and the importance of the Sicilian school consists in the [106]
fact that while the subject matter of their songs was lifted from
troubadour poetry, the language which they used belonged to the Italian
peninsula. The dialect of these _provenzaleggianti_ was not pure
Sicilian but was probably a literary language containing elements drawn
from other dialects, as happened long before in the case of the
troubadours themselves. The best known representatives of this school,
Pier delle Vigne, Jacopo da Len