4 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPAKATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



varied abilities, in many respects far ahead of his age. The work by 

 which lie is best known, an encyclopaedic poem of moderate literary 

 merit, contains a vast number of observations on all manner of things 

 natural and supernatural, in which tlie veritable and mythical are 

 curiously blended. In Book I., Chapter viii. of I'Acerha, which is de- 

 voted to thunder, lightning, meteorites, earthquakes, and other physical 

 phenomena, mention is made of the occurrence of fossils, although no 

 definite explanation of their origin is undertaken, as has been claimed 

 by Libri and others. Considering the period in which he wrote, we 

 must admit Cecco to have been a first-rate observer, a good reasoner, 

 and less credulous in his judgments than many of his predecessors and 

 contemporaries. Caustic envy of Dante is conspicuous in various parts 

 of his poem, especially in the concluding passage of Book IV., from 

 which the following lines are taken : — 



" Qui non se canta al modo dele rane, 

 Qm non se canta al modo del poeta 

 Che finge imaginando cosse vane ; 

 Ma qui resplende e luce onne natura, 

 Che a chi intende fa la niente lieta ; 

 Qui non se regna per la selva oscura." 



Less a stranger to fame than Cecco is Giovanni Boccaccio, " prince of 

 story-tellers "(1313— 1375), one of whose early amusements consisted in 

 gathering fossil shells near his home in the Valdelsa, hard by Florence. 

 Unusually intelligent and well educated himself, he deplored the pre- 

 vailing ignorance of his age, and aided largely in reviving the study of 

 classic literature in Italy. Amongst his more serious Latin works is a 

 Geographical Dictionary,^ a laborious but indiscriminating compilation, 



1 De Montibus, Silvis, Fontibus, etc., supposed to have been written about 

 1373. The passage on Elsa fluvius (q. v.) occurs on p. 456 of the Basle edition, 

 1589. Cf. also, by the same author, Commenlo a Dante, Lezione LII, in Vol. II., 

 pp. 367-369, of the Milan edition, 186.3. 



On Boccaccio and the extent of his information, the following may be consulted : 

 Ilortis, A., Studj sulle opere latine del Boccaccio. Triest, 1879. — Koerting, G., 

 Per Umfang des Wissens Boccaccios, in his Geschichte der Litteratur Italicns, 

 Vol. II. Leipzic, 1880. — Landau, M., Giovanni Boccaccio, sein Leben und seine 

 Werke. Stuttgart, 1877. — Libri, G., Histoire des sciences mathematiques en 

 Italic, Vol. III. Paris, 1840. — A list of the older writers consulted by Boccaccio in 

 the compilation of his De Montibus, etc., is published in Boll. Soc. Adriat. Sci. Nat, 

 Ann. IIL pp. 62-114. 



On Dante as a naturalist, see Ilolbrook, R. T., Dante and the Animal Kingdom, 

 New York. 1902. 



