The advance in style that marks the transition from the _Ameto_ to the
_Arcadia_ must be largely accredited to Boccaccio himself. The language of
the _Decameron_ became the model of _cinquecento_ prose. Sannazzaro,
however, wrote in evident imitation not of the structural method only, but
of the actual style of the _Ameto_. Something, it is true, he added beyond
the greater mastery of literary form due to training. Even in his most
luxuriant descriptions and most sensuous images we find that grace and
clearness of vision which characterize the early poetry of the
Renaissance proper, and combine in literature the luminous purity of
Botticelli and the gem-like detail of Pinturicchio. The mythological
affectation of the elder work appears in the younger modified, refined,
subordinated; there is the same delight in detailed description, but
relieved by greater variety of imagination; while, even in the most
laboured passages, there is a poetical feeling as well as a more
subjective manner, which, combined with a remarkable power of
visualization, saves them from the danger of the catalogue. Again, there
is everywhere visible the same artificiality of style which characterizes
the _Ameto_, but purged of its more extravagant elements and less affected
and conceited than it became in the works of Lyly and Sidney. Like the
_Ameto_, lastly, but unlike its Spanish and English successors, the
_Arcadia_ is purely pastoral, free from any chivalric admixture.
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