 There is one important exception to Dante’s scorn for the fourteen or so vernaculars that he reviews, and it is the vernacular of the Bolognese. Dante claims that the Bolognese seem to “speak a more beautiful language than most” [1.15.2] because their vernacular, unlike that of other regions of Italy, borrows from other vernaculars in such a way that it is “tempered by the combination of opposites” [1.15.5]. Unfortunately for them, however, Dante explains that his praise for their language is not absolute but is only relative to his disdain for the sad state of the other existing vernaculars. After all, he says, had the dialect of the Bolognese been absolutely the best of the existing Italian vernaculars, why would praiseworthy poets such as Guido Guinizelli, Guido Ghislieri, Fabruzzo, and Onesto have abandoned it?