h
place its genuineness beyond the pale of possibility. After a careful
consideration of Scheffer's, Fanfani's, Gino Capponi's, and Isidoro del
Lungo's arguments, it seems to me clearly established that the Chronicle
of Dino Compagni can no longer be regarded as a perfectly genuine
document of fourteenth-century literature. In the form in which we now
possess it, we are rather obliged to regard it as a _rifacimento_ of
some authentic history, compiled during the course of the fifteenth
century in a prose which bears traces of the post-Boccaccian style of
composition.[1] Yet the authority of Dino Compagni has long been such,
and such is still the literary value of the monograph which bears his
name, that it would be impertinent to dismiss the 'Chronicle'
unceremoniously as a mere fiction. I propose, therefore, first to give
an account of the book on its professed merits, and then to discuss, as
briefly as I can, the question of its authenticity.

[1] The first critic to call Compagni's authenticity in question was
Pietro Fanfani, in an article of _Il Pievano Arlotto_, 1858. The
cause was taken up, shortly after this date, by an abler German
authority, P. Scheffer-Boichorst. The works which I have studied on
this subject are, 1. _Florentiner Studien_, von P.
Scheffer-Boichorst, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1874. 2. _Dino Compagni
vendicato dalla Calunnia di Scrittore della Cronica_, di Pietro
Fanfani, Milano, Carrara, 1875. 3. _Die Chronik des Dino Compagni,
Versuch einer Rettung_, von Dr. Carl Hegel, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875.
4. _Die Chronik des Dino Compagni, Kritik der Hegelschen Schrift_,
von P. Scheffer-Boichorst, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875. 5. The note
appended to Gino Capponi's _Storia della Repubblica di Firenze_. 6.
_Dino Compagni e la sua Chronica_, per Isidoro del Lungo, Firenze,
Le Mornier. Unluckily, the last-named work, though it consists
already of two bulky volumes in large 8vo, is not yet complete; and
the part which will treat of the question of authorship and MS.
authority has not appeared.

The year 1300, which Dante chose for the date of his descent with Virgil
to the nether world, and which marked the beginning of Villani's
'Chronicle,' is also mentioned by Dino Compagni in the first sentence of
the preface to his work. 'The recollections of ancient histories,' he
says, 'have a long while stirred my mind to writing the perilous and
ill-fated events, w