Guido Guinicelli, the best of the Italian poets before Dante, flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. He was a native of Bologna, but of his life nothing is known. His most celebrated poem is a Canzone on the Nature of Love, which goes far to justify the warmth and tenderness of Dante’s praise. Rossetti, Early Italian Poets , p. 24, gives the following version of it, under the title of “The Gentle Heart”:⁠—