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 Lentini and Guido delle Colonne are familiar to students of Dante.  After their time no one questioned the fact that lyric poetry written in Italian was a possible achievement.  The influence of the Sicilian school extended to Central Italy and Tuscany; Dante tells us that all Italian poetry preceding his own age was known as Sicilian.  The early Tuscan poets were, mediately or immediately, strongly influenced by Provencal.  The first examples of the sonnet, by Dante da Majano, were written in that language.  But such poetry was little more than a rhetorical exercise.  It was the revival of learning and the Universities, in particular that of Bologna, which inspired the dolce stil nuovo, of which the first exponent was Guido Giunicelli.  Love was now treated from a philosophical point of view:  hitherto, the Provencal school had maintained the thesis that “sight is delight,” that love originated from seeing and pleasing, penetrated to the heart and [107] occupied the thoughts, after passing through the eyes.  So Aimeric de Pegulhan.

  Perque tuit li fin aman
  Sapchan qu’amors es fina bevolenza
  Que nais del cor e dels huelh, ses duptar.

“Wherefore let all pure lovers know that love is pure unselfishness which is born undoubtedly from the heart and from the eyes,” a sentiment thus repeated by Guido delle Colonne of the Sicilian school.

  Dal cor si move un spirito in vedere
  D’in ochi’n ochi, di femina e d’omo
  Per lo quel si concria uno piacere.

The philosophical school entirely transformed this conception.  Love seeks the noble heart by affinity, as the bird seeks the tree:  the noble heart cannot but love, and love inflames and purifies its nobility, as the power of the Deity is transmitted to the heavenly beings.  When this idea had been once evolved, Provencal poetry could no longer be a moving force; it was studied but was not imitated.  Its influence had lasted some 150 years, and as far as Italy is concerned it was Arabic learning, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas who slew the troubadours more certainly than Simon de Montfort and his crusaders.  The day of superficial [108] prettiness and of the cult of form had passed; love conjoined with learning, a desire to pierce to the roots of things, a greater depth of thought and earnestness were the characteristics of the new school.