Chapter 3: Dante’s Schooling, Dante’s Library

Bolton Holloway, Julia

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-44093-9_3

Julia Bolton Holloway³

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

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Abstract

Dante’s guardian, Brunetto Latino, educated in turn by his father, Bonaccursus Latinus, in Fiesole’s La Lastra, was proficient in Latin texts on oratory, translating speeches, then in exile began to write his Rettorica in Italian prose for a rich banker, a fellow Florentine, while also composing the likewise incomplete Tesoretto in verse, initially as a diplomatic present to Alfonso X el Sabio, candidate for Holy Roman Emperor, a text he later recycled for his Republican students in Florence. In that northern French exile he had come under the influence of the Chartrian Neo-Platonists and their followers, the two authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, of the Roman de la Rose, who made use of the autobiographical dream vision form as a frame tale for encyclopedic pedagogy. Brunetto follows suit, describing himself as lost from the true path at the news given him in the Pass of Roncesvalles of the defeat of Montaperti and his consequent exile, from which he wanders into a dream landscape where Natura, the allegorical Virtues, Ovid, and Ptolemy proceed to teach him—and with him the regal, imperial, republican, and democratic readers of his text, who include ourselves—wisdom

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Notes

1.
Il Tesoretto, ed. Francesco Mazzoni.
2.
JB Holloway, The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland and Chaucer.
3.
Il Tesoretto, ed. JB Holloway.
4.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales: Brunetto Latino and Dante Alighieri.
5.
http://www.florin.ms/OpereBrunettoLatino.html.
6.
The spelling of “c” as “ch” reflects the Tuscan pronunciation one can still hear among contadini. In this we are possibly hearing Dante’s own use of the aspirated hard “c”.
7.
Fiesole, Archivio Vescovile, II.B.4.
8.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, passim.
9.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica.
10.
Dino Compagni, Chronicle of Florence, trans. Daniel F. Bornstein.
11.
Robert Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, trans. Giovanni Battista Klein.
12.
Guido Guerra, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 24–26, 28–29, 32, 38–40, 52, 88, 171, 290.
13.
Cavalcante Cavalcanti, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 24, 30, 155, 296, 319.
14.
Farinata degli Uberti, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 25, 28–30, 51, 155, 183, 186, 197, 205, 207, 266, 288, 296–297.
15.
Tegghiaio Aldobrandi degli Adimari, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 24–25, 28, 32, 34, 40, 54, 171, 198, 207, 26,-297.
16.
Jacopo Rusticucci, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 24–29, 32, 171, 317, 319.
17.
Tesauro de Becaria, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 3, 8, 35–38, 55, 60, 75, 83, 91, 121, 150, 180, 183, 203–204, 234, 287, 296, 333, 512,-514.
18.
Andrea de’ Mozzi, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 33, 35, 90–91, 171, 296.
19.
Ugolino della Gherardesca, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. vii, 5, 35, 78, 89, 114, 131, 148,-139, 152–155, 163, 289, 296–299, 300, 304, 389, 403, 405, 407, 412, 504, 512.
20.
Vanni Fucci, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 151, 296, 300, 304, 418.
21.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 315–427.
22.
BAV Chig L.VII.267, fol. xxxviij^r. This important manuscript, calling Brunetto Chancellor of Florence, may have been written by Brunetto’s son Perseo/Perusgio (named after the Bishop of Fiesole) at the court of Robert the Wise of Sicily. The armorial roses on Brunetto’s column in Santa Maria Maggiore were awarded by Robert the Wise to Perseo. Brunetto seems to joke with colors for names, Perseo being the name for black cloth, the daughter, Biancia, for white, Brunetto, meaning brown, and who always wrote with brown ink.
23.
ASF, Libro di Montaperti, fols. 11^r, 33r–35^r, 50^v, 65^r, 74^v; Il Libro di Montaperti, ed. Cesare Paoli, pp. 96–102; Twice-Told Tales, pp. 335–342; Renato Stopani, L’Aguato di Montaperti; “Il Libro di Montaperti”, The City and the Book International Conference III, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, via Orsanmichele, 4, Florence, 4–7 September, 2002,
https://www.florin.ms/beth2.html#stopani
24.
Cronica di Giovanni Villani, VI.lxxiii, II.100, text originally written, 1322–1348: “E per molti anni era stata la discordia de’ due eletti, ma la Chiesa di Roma più favoreggiava Alfonso di Spagna, acciocch’egli colle sue forze venisse ad abbattere la superbia di Manfredi: per la qual cagione i guelfi di Firenze gli mandarono ambasciadori per sommuoverlo del passare, promettendogli grande aiuto acciochè favoresse parte guelfa. E l’ambasciadore fu ser Brunetto Latini, uomo di grande senno e autoritade; ma innanzi che fosse fornita l’ambasciata, i Fiorentini furono sconfitti a Montaperti, e lo re Manfredi prese grande vigore e stato in tutta Italia, e’l podere della parte della Chiesa n’abbassò assai”. The best historical background materials for Dante, besides Giovanni Villani, are Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica, ed. Isidoro Del Lungo, and Robert Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, 8 vols.
25.
Farid Mahdavi, review of Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2003, discusses the Islamic world’s greater book production technology in using multiple scribes.
26.
It is important to study the presence of music for Dante and His Circle, he having grown up hearing the monks of the 21. Badia singing psalms in their daily liturgy, the compagnie dei laudesi of the lay people, and the secular songs such as those he wrote, one of which Casella sings in Purgatorio II. See “Chapter 5: Dante’s Three Beasts”.
27.
Keller, John E. and Richard Kincade, “Iconography and Literature; King Alfonso’s Most Personal Appearance: Cantiga de Santa Maria 209”, Hispania 66 (1983), 345–52.
28.
“Part II, Title I, Law X: What the Word Tyrant Means, and How a Tyrant Makes Use of this Power in a Kingdom, After He Has Obtained Possession of it. A tyrant means a lord who has obtained possession of some kingdom, or country, by force, fraud, or treason. Persons of this kind are of such a character, that after they have obtained thorough control of a country, they prefer to act for their own advantage, although it may result in injury to the country, rather than for the common benefit of all, because they always live in the expectation of losing it. And in order that they might execute their desires more freely, the ancient sages declared that they always employed their power against the people, by means of three kinds of artifice. The first is, that persons of this kind always exert themselves to keep those under their dominion ignorant and timid, because, when they are such, they will not dare to rise up against them, oppose their wishes. The second is, that they promote disaffection among the people so that they do not trust one another, for while they live in such discord, they will not dare to utter any speech against the king, fearing that neither faith nor secrecy will be kept among them. The third is, that they endeavor to make them poor, and employ them in such great labors that they can never finish them; for the reason that they may always have so much to consider in their own misfortunes, that they will never have the heart to think of committing any act against the government of the tyrant. In addition to all this, tyrants always endeavor to despoil the powerful, and put the wise to death; always forbid brotherhoods and associations in their dominions; and constantly manage to be informed of what is said or done in the country, trusting more for counsel and protection to strangers, because they serve them voluntarily, than to natives who have to perform service through compulsion. We also decree that although a person may have obtained the sovereignty of a kingdom by any of the methods mentioned in the preceding law, if he should make a bad use of his power in any of the ways above stated in this law, people can denounce him as a tyrant, and his government which was lawful, will become wrongful; as Aristotle stated in the book which treats of the government of cities and kingdoms”.
29.
Enrico Cerulli, Il “Libro della Scala” e la Questione delle fonte arabo-spagnole della Divina Commedia; Nuove Ricerche sul Libro della Scala e la conoscenza dell’Islam in Occidente.
30.
Renato Stopani, L’Aguato di Montaperti.
31.
Il Villani illustrato: Firenze e l’Italia medievale nelle 253 immagini del ms. Chigiano L.VIII.296 della Biblioteca Vaticana, ed. Chiara Frugoni.
32.
Tesoretto 130–163; Letter from father, Bonaccursius Latinus, given in Twice-Told Tales, pp. 52–53.
33.
Also documented in Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VI.lxxix, II.113.
34.
La Rettorica, BNCF II.IV.127, fol. 1^v; Brunetto speaking to Dante repeats this word, Inf. XV.56.
35.
Li Livres dou Tresor. Publié pour la premiere fois d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal et plusieurs manuscrits des départements et de l’étranger, ed. Polycarpe Chabaille; Li Livres dou Tresor de Brunetto Latini, ed. Francis J. Carmody (23 in Picardan dialect, 5 with possible Jerusalem Kingdom associations, out of a total of 91 manuscripts); Alison Stones, City and Book III,
https://www.florin.ms/beth5.html#stones; Brigitte Roux, Mondes en Miniatures: L’iconographie du Livre dou Tresor de Brunetto Latini.
36.
See Serge Lusignan, Essai d’histoire sociolinguistique. Le français picard au Moyen Age, on scripta. Brunetto could have dictated his Li Livres dou Tresor in Italian to bilingual scribes in his legal chambers in Arras who rendered the work in Picard French. See facsimile edition, Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor. Its twin manuscript from which Brunetto Latino could have dictated from its French into Florentine Italian for Guido, Dante, and Francesco is Florence, BML, Ashburnham 125. My thanks to Alison Stones.
37.
Vittorio Imbriani, “Dimostrazione che Brunetto Latini non fu maestro di Dante”, Giornale napoletano di filosofia e lettere. A VII (1878). 1–24, 169, 198; Rpt. as “Che Brunetto Latini non fu maestro di Dante”, Studi Danteschi (1891), pp. 335–80, claimed Brunetto was too busy a man to be a mere teacher. Francesco Novati, Le Epistole. Conferenza letta da Francesco Novati nella Sala di Dante in Orsanmichele (1905), Lectura Dantis, ably refuted him but Imbriani’s claim came to be believed.
38.
Vatican Secret Archives, 15, 24 September 1263, from Arras, Misc. 99; Westminster Abbey Muniment Room and Library, 17 April 1264, from Bar-sur-Aube, Muniment 12843; Twice-Told Tales, pp. 344–345.
39.
A fragment of the Tesoretto is mentioned by Berthold Weise, Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 7 (1883), 236–389, as having been in the Marques de Santillana’s collection but is now lost; Li Livres dou Tresor is BEscorial I.II.3; Las Cantigas de Santa Maria is BNCF Banco Rari 20.
40.
Las Cantigas de Santa Maria, BNCF Banco Rari 20, fol. 119^v; Antonio G. Solalinde, “El Codice florentino de las Cantigas y su relación con los demás manuscritos”, Revista de Filología Española 5 (1918), 143–179: John E. Keller and Richard P. Kinkade, “Iconography and Literature: Alfonso Himself in Cantiga 209”, Hispania 66 (1983), 348–352; Nhora Lucia Serrano, “Marian Imagery in Alfonso el Sabio, Las Cantigas de Santa Maria”. The City and the Book II, The Manuscript, the Illumination, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Via Orsanmichele, 4, Florence, 4–7 September 2002, Proceedings, http://www.florin.ms/beth2.html#serrano; BNCF, Banco Rari 20: Alfonso X, re di Castiglia e di León (1221–1284): Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming: Internet Archive, p. 224. This fourth regal copy of Las Cantigas could only have been assembled after the King’s illness during the years 1276–1277 at Victoria and before his death in 1284. The King was already disappointed with the Pope’s annulment of his lifelong ambition to be finally crowned Holy Roman Emperor at Beaucaire, May 1275, Rudolph of Hapsbourg being elected instead. I thank Pamela Patton of Princeton University’s Index of Medieval Art for much of this information. The letter formulae for the Pope to write to Rudolph and to Alfonso are in the 1286 Sommetta manuscript of the Tesoro.
41.
We should not exclude the maqamat, such as in Juan de Ruiz, Libro di Buen Amor, where the rogue teller effectively preaches against the sin he manifestly practices, sometimes then converting.
42.
Roberto Weiss, The Spread of Italian Humanism, p. 35.
43.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, p. 381.
44.
Only Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 5035 [Marc. it. II.53 (Farsetti)], a late manuscript, ascribes itself to Bono Giamboni, though many editors, librarians, and scholars erroneously followed suit, even inscribing the information on the manuscripts themselves.
45.
Giovanni Villani, Istorie fiorentine; Amari, Altre narrazioni; Robert Davidsohn, Geschichte von Floren, 4 vols; Storia di Firenze, trans. Giovanni Battista Klein, 8 vols, on Peace of Cardinal Latino, Sicilian Vespers; Sir Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers.
46.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, p. 362; ASF 30 January 1275, “et Burnectus Latini notario, pro sextu Porte Domus, Consulibus consociis nostris, nunc absentibus”
47.
Michele Amari, Altre narrazioni del Vespro siciliano.
48.
Il Tesoro di Brunetto Latino, Maestro di Dante Alighieri, ed. JB Holloway.
49.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VII.lxviii.II.252–253; Twice-Told Tales, pp. 121–126.
50.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VI.xv, II.167.
51.
Leonardo Bruni, Della vita di Dante, p. 4.
52.
Della Casa di Dante: Relazione con Documenti al Consiglio Generale del Comune di Firenze., pp. 13, 25–27, transcribes ASF, Diplomatico, 29 September 1239, Firenze, S Miniato al Monte (olivetani), concerning sale of land at Montalto.
https://www.archiviodigitale.icar.beniculturali.it/it/185/ricerca/detail/62447#viewer). I have some problems with this date of 1239 which seems too early for this “Alagerius” to be Dante’s father. See also Elisa Brilli, Giorgio Inglese, Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, Nicolò Maldina, Lorenzo Tanzini, Mirko Tavoni, “Dante Attraverso i documenti: una discussione tra storici e italianisti”, Reti Medievali Rivista, 15.2 (2014).
53.
Charles Till Davis, “Education in Dante’s Florence”, Dante’s Italy and Other Essays; Libri e lettori al tempo di Dante: La biblioteca di Santa Croce in Firenze: Atti delle Giornate di Studio (Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, 13–14 maggio 2022), eds. Sandro Bertelli, Costantino Marmo, Anna Pegoretti.
54.
Leonardo Bruni, Della Vita Studi e Costumi di Dante, “Il padre suo Aldighieri perde’ nella sua puerizia: nientedimanco, confortato da’ propinqui e da Brunetto Latini, valentissimo uomo secondo quel tempo, non solamente a litteratura, ma agli altri studii liberali si diende, niente lasciando a dietro che appartenga a far l’uomo eccellente,” p. 4. Dante himself speaks of this situation: Convivio IV.24, “If someone should protest that ‘what is said is said only of the father and not of others’, I reply that all other obedience must redound to the father. Thus the Apostle says to the Colossians: ‘Children, obey your fathers in all things, for this is the will of God’. If the father is no longer living, it redounds to him who is designated father by the father’s last will. Should the father die intestate, it redounds to him to whom the Law entrusts his son’s guidance. And next in order teachers and elders should be obeyed, to whom he seems in some way to have been entrusted by the father or by him who stands in the father’s place”.
55.
Literary Criticism of Dante Alighieri, ed. and trans. Robert S. Haller, p. 65; Convivio I.xiii.4-.
56.
Robert Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, III. 564–565.
57.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 54, 518. The Dunkerque manuscript, lost in a fire in 1929, had been illuminated with Knights Templar, then still based in St Jean d’Acre.
58.
Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola, La Divina Commedia nel secolare commento, ed. Biagi, I.411.
59.
Francesco Da Buti, Comento sopra la Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri, I.9.
60.
Leonardo Bruni, Vita di Dante, p. 4.
61.
Sir Richard Southern, who had taught me at Berkeley when a Visiting Professor, much liked my comment on Brunetto as running a store front university.
62.
Adolfo Mussafia, “Sul testo del «Tesoro» di Brunetto Latini, Studio di Adolfo Mussafia presentato nella tornata della classe, 1868”, in Denkschriften Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 18–19 (1868): 265–334; Michele Amari, Altre narrazioni del Vespro siciliano scritte nel buon secolo della lingua; Sonia Minutello, La cosmografia figurata nei codici in volgare del «Tesoro» di Brunetto Latini, Thesis, Università degli Studi di Udine, 2003–2004.
63.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 107–143, esp. pp. 118–119; Le Opere di Brunetto Latino, Il Tesoro, Vol. I, BML Plut.42.20, fols. 63^v–68^v.
64.
ASF, Capitoli di Firenze, Reg. 43 olim XLIV/XLVI, fols. 34–37^v, 85–87^v; Genoa XXXIX, Biblioteca Universitaria Cod. A, fol. 437; Archivio di Stato di Genova, Cod. C, fol. 126; Twice-Told Tales, pp. 152, 385–407, 412–413, 1284–1290, present multiple archival documents concerning Brunetto Latino, Guido Cavalcanti, Corso Donati as involved in hearings concerning blockading Pisa against the entry of all foodstuffs by Florence, Lucca, and Genoa, the documents implicating Ugolino della Gherardesca in the treachery, then paying reparations to the surviving son, Count Guelfus.
65.
BAV Chig L.VIII.296, fol.135^r, Giovanni Villani, Pacino di Bonaguida, Nuova cronica. Charles I’s death.
66.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 109–112.
67.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 153–154; BNCF II.IV.323, fol. 10^v; Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VII.clv, II.362: “De miracoli che apparirono in Firenze per santa Maria d’ Orto san Michele. Nel detto anno a di 3 del mese di Luglio, si cominciarono a mostrare grandi e aperti miracoli nella città di Firenze per una figura dipinta di santa Maria in uno pilastro della loggia d’Orto san Michele, ove si vende il grano, sanando infermi, e rizzando attratti, e isgombrare imperversati visibilemente in grande quantità. Ma i frati predicatori e ancora i minori per invidia o per altra cagione non vi davano fede, onde caddono in grande infamia de’ Fiorentini. In quello luogo d’Orto san Michele si truova che fu anticamente la chiesa di san Michele in Orto, la quale era sotto la badia di Nonantola in Lombardia, e fu disfatta per farvi piazza; ma per usanza e devozione alla detta figura, ogni sera per laici si cantavano laude; e crebbe tan to la fama de’ detti miracoli e meriti di nostra Donna, che di tutta Toscana vi venia la gente in peregrinaggio per le feste di santa Maria, recando diverse immagine di cera per miracoli fatti, onde grande parte della loggia dinanzi e intorno alla detta figura s' empie, e crebbe tanto lo stato di quella compagnia, ov’erano buona parte della migliore gente di Firenze, che molti beneficii e limosine, per offerere e lasci fatti, ne seguirono a’ poveri 1’ anno piu di seimila libbre; e seguesi a’ di nostri, sanza acquistare nulla possessione, con troppo maggiore entrata; distribuendosi tutta a’ poveri”. Brunetto also wrote an exquisite lauda, BNCF Palatino 168, Lauda di “Maestro latino”, JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 504–509, given here in the online Appendices; Dante similarly composed “Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio” as a lauda for St Bernard to sing to the “figura” of the Madonna, Par. XXXIII.
68.
Guido Cavalcanti, XLVIIIa, 1292, given at this book’s opening.
69.
Cyrilla Barr, The Monophonic Lauda and the Lay Religious Confraternities of Tuscany and Umbria in the Late Middle Ages; Ursula Betka, “Marian Images and Laudesi Devotion in Late Medieval Italy, ca. 1260–1350”, University of Melbourne Thesis, 2001.
70.
Umberto Marchesini, “Due studi biografici su Brunetto Latini”, Atti del Regio Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 6th ser., 6 (1887), 1616–1617, gave 1348 Testament of Biancia Latini, Brunetto’s daughter, from ASF, Libro di testamenti di Or San Michele, 471, fols 93v–94 (lost in 1966 Flood); BML 61.13 gives Lapo da Castiglionchio, her father-in-law’s unpublished manuscript chronicle. It’s a most beautiful manuscript. He is also named in the Libro del Chiodo.
71.
BML Plut 29.8, Zibaldone Laurenziana; Giovanni Boccaccio, Lo Zibaldone, ed. Guido Biagi; JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, p. 504.
72.
Necrologia, Santa Maria del Fiore, Archive, I.3.6.
73.
BML Tempi 3, Domenico Lenzi, Libro del Biadaiolo, miniaturist, “Master of the Dominican Effigies”, who is possibly Francesco da Barberino.
74.
BAV Chig L.VIII.296, fol. 152^v, Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, Pacino di Bonaguida, Giano Della Bella.
75.
ASF Liber Fabarum III, circa fol. 100; Consulte della Repubblica fiorentina dall’anno MCCLXXX al MCCXVVIII, ed. Gherardi, II.201, 22 July 1292, final mention of Brunetto Latino in Florence’s archives as counselling concerning Vanni Fucci, who features in Inferno XXIV.97–XXV.24.
76.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 151–152, 417–418; Dino Compagni, Cronica, ed. Del Lungo, notes Guido Cavalcanti sought to go on pilgrimage to St James of Compostela to escape from Corso Donati’s violence; thus he repeated his teacher’s journeying to Spain: “Uno giovane gentile, figliuolo di messer Cavalcante Cavalcanti, nobile cavaliere, chiamato Guido, cortese e ardito ma sdegnoso e solitario e intento allo studio, nimico di messer Corso, avea più volte diliberato offenderlo. Messer Corso forte lo temea, perché lo conoscea di grande animo; e cercò d’assassinarlo, andando Guido in pellegrinaggio a San Iacopo; e non li venne fatto.”
77.
Biblioteca Comunale Ariosteia, BFerrara II.280, Li Livres dou Tresor with tençone against Charles of Anjou, and Dante’s sonnet, “Guido, io vorra che tu e Lapo e io,” on fly leaf:Verse
Verse Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io fossimo presi per incantamento e messi in un vasel, ch’ad ogni vento per mare andasse al voler vostro e mio; sì che fortuna od altro tempo rio non ci potesse dare impedimento, anzi, vivendo sempre in un talento, di stare insieme crescesse ’l disio. E monna Vanna e monna Lagia poi con quella ch’è sul numer de le trenta con noi ponesse il buono incantatore: e quivi ragionar sempre d’amore, e ciascuna di lor fosse contenta, sì come i’ credo che saremmo noi.
78.
The true 25. Dante House, next door to the fake Museo Casa di Dante, still has the same lintel door architecture as in BAV Chig L.VIII.296, fol. 112^v, Giovanni Villani, Pacino di Bonaguida, Nuova cronica, where Conradin is executed, and in Pietro Lorenzetti’s 1313 St Umiltà panel. Leonardo Bruni says he showed this house to Dante’s great grandson, Leonardo Alighieri, “Vita di Dante”, p. 11.
79.
Giani Della Bella, BAV Chig L.VIII.296, fol. 152^v, 1293 (“Chapter 1: Dante’s Circle in Time”: Corso Donati frees criminals, fol. 167^r, 1301, Plate XII: Corso dies violently, fol. 193^r, 1308).
80.
Leonardo Bruni, “Vita di Dante”, pp. 6–7.
81.
Leonardo Bruni, “Vita di Dante”, p. 5.
82.
Pietro Alighieri, Commentarium, “Fingendo auctor se ibi invenire inter sodomitas Ser Brunettum Latinum de Florentia”, going on to speak of Florence being founded from Fiesole because of Catiline’s treachery, p. 176.
83.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VI.lxxxi, II.116–118; Twice-Told Tales, pp. 28–30, 51, 155, 266, 297, 319, 327.
84.
BML Plut 42.20, Tesoro, fol. 61^r.
85.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 24–52, 317–319.
86.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VI.lxxxvii, II.100–108 Twice-Told Tales, pp. 151–152, 418.
87.
BML, Strozzi 146, Tesoretto, fol.10^v–11^r, lines 1043–1063 and miniature with columns, Plate LXXVI.
88.
BML Plut 42.20, Tesoro, fols. 64^r–66^r.
89.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 35–38.
90.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, pp. 148–156, 389–412.
91.
Tesoretto, ed. JB Holloway, lines 2775–2785
92.
Tesoretto, ed. JB Holloway, lines 11–112.
93.
BNCF Banco Rari 217 Canzoniere Palatino; Il Canzoniere Palatino. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze Banco Rari 217 (ex Palatino 4180, I Canzonieri della lirica italiana delle origini III, ed. Lino Leonardi.
94.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh and Other Poems, ed. John Robert Glorney Bolton and JB Holloway.
95.
Christine de Pizan/Cristina Da Pizzano, Le Chemin de Long Estudes/Il Cammin di Lungo Studio, trans. Ester Zago.
96.
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, trans. Richard Green, p. 18; for the account of his imprisonment and the brutality of his execution, bonds tied around his head until his eyes popped out, finished off with the bludgeon and the axe, see E.K. Rand, Founders of the Middle Ages, pp. 135–180.
97.
Enrico Cerulli, “Il Libro della Scala” e la Questione delle fonti arabo-spagnole della Divina Commedia, pp. 12–14. His edition gives Anglo-Norman text from Oxford, Bodleian Laud Misc. 534, Latin text from Paris, BNF lat. 6064, variants from BAV lat. 4070, illustrations from Paris, BNF Suppl. Turc. 190, dated 1436, written for Tamurlane’s son.
98.
Pietro Alighieri, Commentarium, pp. 9–10.
99.
Pietro Alighieri, Commentarium, p. 89, etc.
100.
Il Tesoro di Brunetto Latino, Maestro di Dante Alighieri, with DVD, ed. JB Holloway, https://www.florin.ms/OpereBrunettoLatino.html.
101.
Farid Mahdavi, review of Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper Before Print.
102.
Federigo Ubaldini, who edited and published both the 1640 Documenti d’Amore and the 1642 Tesoretto first editions, erred in identifying Francesco da Barberino as “di Neri”. Instead, Francesco di ser Nardi da Barberino is the fellow student with Guido Cavalcanti and Dante Alighieri of Brunetto Latino, and the notary, judge, author, illuminator, and scribe, buried in Santa Croce in 1348 with the epitaph written by Giovanni Boccaccio.
103.
Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, Publié pour la premier fois d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenale et plusieurs manuscrits des dèpartments et l’étranger, ed. Polycarpe Chabaille; Li Livres dou Tresor, ed. Francis J. Carmody; Li livre dou tresor, ed. Spurgeon Baldwin and Paul Barrette. Edition of MS Escorial L-II-3 (makes error twice of believing Brunetto Latino is in the same guild as Dante, pp. ix, xi; instead Brunetto’s guild is the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, that which Dante and Giotto shared, the Arte dei Medici e Speziali; likewise, the editors have not accessed more recent Italian findings and therefore accept Bono Giamboni as translator of Il tesoro, p. xxix, lacks index); Li Livres dou Tresor, ed. Pietro G. Beltrami, Paolo Squillaciotti, Plinio Torri, and Sergio Vatteroni, Collana I Millenni.
104.
Richard Mac Cracken, The Dedication Inscription of the Palazzo del Podestà in Florence with a walking tour of the monuments.
105.
Florence, Archivio di Stato, Il Libro di Montaperti, fols 33^r–35^r; Il Libro di Montaperti, ed. Cesare Paoli, Documenti di Storia Italiana 9.
106.
Vittorio Imbriani, “Dimostrazione che Brunetto Latini non fu maestro di Dante”, Giornale napoletano di filosofia e lettere, A VII (1878): 1–24, 169, 198; Rpt. as “Che Brunetto Latini non fu maestro di Dante”, Studi Danteschi (Florence: Sansoni, 1891): 335–80; ably countered by Francesco Novati, Le Epistole. Conferenza letta da Francesco Novati nella Sala di Dante in Orsanmichele, Lectura Dantis: 7–14. Imbriani falsified the date of one of the documents he cited to claim Brunetto was too busy to be a mere teacher.
107.
Brunetto Latini, La Rettorica, ed. Francesco Maggini.
108.
Il Tesoretto di Ser Brunetto Latini, ed. Federigo Ubaldini; Il Tesoretto, ed. Giovanni Battista Zannoni; Der Tesoretto und Favolello B. Latinos, ed. Berthold Wiese, Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 7 (1883): 236–389; Il Tesoretto, ed. Giovanni Pozzi, in Poeti del Duecento, ed. Gianfranco Contini, 2: 168–284; Il Tesoretto (The Little Treasure), ed. JB Holloway; Il Tesoretto, Introduction, Franca Arduini, Preface, Francesco Mazzoni, Transcription, JB Holloway. Marcello Ciccuto republished Giovanni Pozzi/Gianfranco Contini’s edition in 1985.
109.
Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, Publié pour la premiere fois d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal et plusieurs manuscrits des départements et de l’étranger, ed. Polycarpe Chabaille; Li Livres dou Tresor de Brunetto Latini, ed. Francis J. Carmody; Li livre dou tresor, ed. Spurgeon Baldwin and Paul Barrette; Li Livres dou Tresor, ed. Pietro G. Beltrami, Paolo Squillaciotti, Plinio Torri, and Sergio Vatteroni.
110.
Florence, BML Ashburnham 125, likely Arras provenance. Its twin is the St Petersburg Tresor manuscript.
111.
David Napolitano, ‘Sulle tracce dei primi stampatori del Tesoro di Brunetto Latino’, in Appendice, Volume II, DVD, Il Tesoro di Brunetto Latino, Maestro di Dante Alighieri.
112.
“Sul testo del «Tesoro» di Brunetto Latini, Studio di Adolfo Mussafia presentato nella tornata della classe, 1868”, in Denkschriften Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 18–19 (1868): 265–334; Michele Amari, Altre narrazioni del Vespro siciliano scritte nel buon secolo della lingua; Sonia Minutello, La cosmografia figurata nei codici in volgare del «Tesoro» di Brunetto Latini, Thesis, Università degli Studi di Udine, 2003–2004. Helene Wieruszowski, “Brunetto Latini als Lehrer Dantis und der Florentiner (Mitteilungen aus Cod. II:VIII.36 der Florentiner National Bibliothek)”, Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà, 2 (1959), 179–98, studies Florence, BNCF, II.VIII.36, dated 1286; Florence, BML Plut 42.20, fol. 109^v, predicts in the future moon phases for 1298, “Io uoglo sapere- / quanti dì a la luna in chalen= / di giungno nel mille dugi= / ento nouanta otto”, these being ″First Redaction” Tesoro manuscripts from Brunetto’s school room.
113.
Irene Maffia Scariati, Dal «Tresor» al «Tesoretto». Saggi su Brunetto Latini e i suoi fiancheggiatori, reverses the ordering of the works. It is true that when Brunetto possibly gave the Tesoretto to Dante to copy in the 1280s, Brunetto had already written Li Livres dou Tresor to Charles of Anjou from 1261 to 1265, thus in the past though following his earlier writing of the Tesoretto to Alfonso X el Sabio in 1260.
114.
The entry in the Santa Reparata Necrologia, Archivio, Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6, gives his burial with many other members of the Cavalcanti family among those of the Compagnia dei Laudesi di Orsanmichele: though Francesco Velardi, “I ‘Due Guido Cavalcanti’ e la data di morte del necrologia di Santa Reparata”, Studi Danteschi 72 (2007), 239–263, questions this entry.

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Bolton Holloway, J. (2024). Chapter 3: Dante’s Schooling, Dante’s Library. In: Dante and His Circle. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44093-9_3

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