Latin and the Vernacular
Every tongue has its own perfection, its own music, and its own polished and artistic utterance. But if I were asked why Dante elected to write in the vulgar tongue rather than in Latin and the literary style, I should give the true answer that Dante knew he was far better fitted for this riming style in the vernacular than for the Latin or literary style. And certainly he has gracefully expressed in vernacular rime many things which he had neither the knowledge nor the power to set forth in the Latin tongue and in heroic verse. The proof lies in his eclogues, written in hexameters, which, good though they be, I have often seen surpassed. For the truth is that our poet's strength lay in vernacular rime, wherein he has no peer. But in Latin verse and in prose he barely reached mediocrity. The reason of this is that his own age was given up to the writing of rime, but of prose as a fine art or of Latin verse, men of that period knew nothing, being rude, uncultivated, and without literary skill; taught in these disciplines, to be sure, but after the manner of monks and scholastics.
Dante writes that riming began about one hundred and fifty years before his time. The first in Italy to practice it were Guido Guinizzelli of Bologna, the 'Joyous Knight' Guitone d'Arezzo, Bonagiunta da Lucca, and Guido da Messina [Guido delle Colonne]. Dante so far excelled all of these in knowledge, delicacy, and graceful elegance that good judges believe that in the use of rime he will never be surpassed. And truly wonderful is the sweetness and sublimity of his wise, pithy, and serious verse, with its variety and affluence, its knowledge of philosophy, its references to ancient history, and such familiarity with modern history that he seems to have been present at every event. These excellent qualities, unfolded with the gentleness of rime, take captive the mind of every reader, and especially of such as have the greatest understanding.
His invention, which was marvelous, was laid hold of with great genius, comprehending, as it does, description of the world, the heavens and the planets, of men, the rewards
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