Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?». I volti di Brunetto Latini: rappresentazione e autorappresentazione

As in portrait (attributed to Giotto) of Brunetto Latini and Dante Alighieri, history has tended to pair the two poets, who were both exiled from their native Florence. The role played by Brunetto Latini in Florence’s history paralleled that of the orator Cicero in Republican Rome and Dante, his student, was Florence’s Virgil. The famous “Brunetto’s Song” (Canto XV of Inferno) has generated many controversies, determined and justified by an uninterrupted and secular reflection. The encounter between the protagonist-traveler and his master has great importance also from the point of view of the creation of The Divine Comedy. But the old florentine intellectual does not only appear in this canto: in fact, he is the author and, at the same time, the protagonist of the famous opera Il Tesoretto, a didactic-allegorical poem written in volgare. In my study I focus on the figure of Brunetto Latini and on his representation by Dante. At first I examine the protagonist Latini: how he appears in the canto and what his part is in The Divine Comedy. Then I concentrate on the author Latini and I try to identify the poet’s voices in the texts and descriptions according to the context.