INTRODUCTION ! xli

torius it became more dangerous and difficult to print any sort
of book. Even while he wrote Corfagion, he must have had
to keep in mind the rigid censorship that might place his work
on the Indez Librorum Proh^biorum, a risk that was much
increased from 1543 onward, when the Inquisition became active
at Venice.!' The gross flatteries of his clerica!l patron that to
our eyes disfigure most of his poems and all his Dedications,
were not only the conventional manner of addressing such per—
sons; they were a necessary precaution. 'This explains the last
sentence of the prose Dedication to Farnese that precedes
Contagion; for there, by "^calumnies", he means denunciation
to the Holy Office, whose agents were on the watch for any ex—
pressions that the Church might disapprove.

De Poetica

His three philosophical Dialogues discuss the aim of poetry,
the functions of the intellect, and the nature of the soul. The
first of these, at any rate, must have been safe from inquisitor—
ial suspicion. Aristotle's Poefics had been translated into Latin
by G. Valla in 1498, and from 1536, when a better version had
been made by Pazzi, many humanists wrote on the Art of Poetry,
taking Aristotle as their text. Fracastorius followed this fash—
ion in Naugerius sive De Poetica, & dialogue in which his dead
friend Navagero is the chief speaker, and the mouthpiece of his
views. R. and G. B. della Torre and Bardulone, a learned Man—
tuan, are supposed to be present, and to have taken refuge,
with Fracastorius, from the heat of Verona in the country
between the city and Incafh, where they presently spend a
night at the villa. It seems that, in order to be immortal, one
has only to write a treatise telling poets of all sorts what the
aim of their poetry should be. 'The poets will not read it, but
the historians of Criticism must. 'Thus Fracastorius has se—
ceured respectful consideration in all the histories of Renaissance
Criticism: '*He was one of the first writers of the Renaissance . . .
to formulate in the most perfect manner what Aristotle really
meant...he clearly distinguishes and defines the ideal element

: For the decline of Humanistic studies, the suppression of print—
ing—presses etc., under the Inquisition in Italy, see Symonds, Rena£is—
sance in Italy. The Catholic Reaction, 1886, Ch. III, The Inquisi—
tion and the Index.