[16] Seyffert’s classical dictionary, as revised by Nettleship and Sandys (1899), definitely assigns Calpurnius to the middle of the first century.  In that case the amphitheatre mentioned was no doubt the wooden structure that preceded the Colosseum.

[17] See, in Conington and Nettleship’s Virgil, 1881, the essay on ’The Later Bucolic Poets of Rome,’ in which will be found a detailed account of this very intricate controversy.

[18] It would appear that the two founders of the renaissance eclogue deliberately chose the Vergilian form as that best suited to their purpose.  Petrarch calls attention to the advantages offered by the pastoral for covert reference to men and events of the day, since it is characteristic of the form to let its meaning only partially appear.  He was therefore perfectly aware of the allegorical nature of the Vergilian eclogue, and adopted it for definite purposes of utility.  Boccaccio is even more explicit, and I cannot do better than transcribe the very interesting summary of the history of pastoral verse down to his day, given in a letter addressed by him to Martino da Signa, which I shall again have occasion to mention in dealing with his own contributions to the kind.  He writes:  ’Theocritus Syracusanus Poeta, ut ab antiquis accepimus, primus fuit, qui Graeco Carmine Buccolicum escogitavit stylum, verum nil sensit, praeter quod cortex verborum demonstrat.  Post hunc Latine scripsit Virgilius, sed sub cortice nonnullos abscondit sensus, esto non semper voluerit sub nominibus colloquentium aliquid sentiremus.  Post hunc autem scripserunt et alii, sed ignobiles, de quibus nil curandum est, excepto inclyto Praeceptore meo Francisco Petrarca qui stylum praeter solitum paululum sublimavit et secundum Eclogarum suarum materias continue collocutorum nomina aliquid significantia posuit.  Ex his ego Virgilium secutus sum quapropter non curavi in omnibus colloquentium nominibus sensum abscondere.’ Lettere di G. Boccaccio, ed.  Corazzini, 1877, p. 267.

[19] Line 1228.  See Skeat’s note in the Athenaeum, March 1, 1902.

[20] On all points connected with these compositions see the elaborate monograph by Wicksteed and Gardner.

[21] Dante’s poems do not stand altogether isolated in this respect.  It would be possible to cite eclogues formerly ascribed to Mussato, as also some from the pens of Giovanni de Boni of Arezzo and Cecco di Mileto, in support of the above remarks.  It is significant of their independence of medieval pastoralism, that Giovanni del Virgilio repeatedly speaks of Dante as the first to write bucolic poetry since Vergil, thus ignoring the whole production from Calpurnius to Metellus.

[22] Boccaccio was of course acquainted with Dante’s eclogues, and in his life of the poet he allows them considerable beauty.  It seems never to have occurred to him, however, to regard them as serious contributions to pastoral literature, for, as we have already seen, he stigmatizes all bucolic writers between Vergil and Petrarch as ignobiles.  I do not think this attitude was due to the influence of Petrarch having lessened his admiration of Dante, as maintained by Wicksteed and Gardner, but simply to his recognition of the absolute unimportance of the poems in question from the historical point of view.