play. The baptism is set forth in this wise: "Here Jesus enters the
waters of Jordan, all naked, and Saint John takes some of the water in
his hand and throws it on the head of Jesus." Saint John says:

"Sir, you now baptized are,
As it suits my simple skill,
Not the lofty rank you fill;
Unmeet for such great service I;
Yet my God, so debonair,
All that's wanting will supply."

"Here Jesus comes out of the river Jordan and throws himself upon his
knees, all naked, before Paradise. Then God, the Father, speaks, and the
Holy Ghost descends, in the form of a white dove, upon the head of
Jesus, and then returns into Paradise: and note that the words of God
the Father be very audibly pronounced and well sounded in three voices,
that is to say, a treble, a counter-treble and a counter-bass, all in
tune; and in this way must the following lines be repeated:

'Hic est filius meus dilectus,
In quo mihi bene complacui.
C'estui-ci est mon fils ame Jesus,
Que bien me plaist, ma plaisance est en lui.'"

Students are offered another choice of dates for the beginning of the
performance of sacred plays in the open air in Italy, to wit, 1304.
Vasari says that in this year a play was enacted on the Arno, that a
"machine representing hell was fixed upon the boats, and that the
subject of the drama was the perennially popular tale of 'Dives and
Lazarus'." But Vasari was not born till 1512, and he neglected to state
where he got his information. The latter years of the fourteenth
century, at any rate, saw the open-air sacred drama in full action, and
that suffices for our purpose.

CHAPTER II

The Sacre Rappresentazioni

Leaving D'Ancona, Vasari and the others in their confusion of dates, we
find ourselves provided with a satisfactory point of departure and with
some facts well defined. The drift of Provencal ideas over the borders
into Lombardy may or may not have given some impetus to the growth of
certain forms in Tuscany and Umbria, but at any rate it is clear that
the Italian form of "Sacre Rappresentazioni" grew chiefly out of the
poetic form called "Laud."

This itself was one of the products of a religious emotion. To observe
it in its cradle we must go back to the beginnings of Italian
literature. The seemingly endless battle between Emperor and Pope, which
scarred the soul of Italy through so many years, was at that time raging
between Frederick II and Innocent III and Gregory IX. The land