 Dante’s style of argumentation in the De vulgari eloquentia is notably assertorial and seems to beg the question of the grounds for his own authority to offer the principles summarized above. To illustrate the significance of this style of argumentation, it is worth backing up for a moment to see that prior to defining the four main features of any illustrious vernacular, Dante had already hunted for an illustrious vernacular among roughly fourteen existing regional species of the Italian mode of the vernacular. During the course of this hunt, however, Dante offered judgments regarding the deficiencies of various aesthetic features of these existing modes of the Italian vernacular as if he had already established the very principles that he articulated only after having abandoned that hunt. For instance, after heaping scorn on the vernacular habits of his fellow Tuscans, Dante proceeds to the following evaluation of the Genoese: