Dante is Italy’s national poet, the author of the country’s most important literary work and the father of modern Italian but no-one has seen a sample of his handwriting for centuries.
Yet as Italy marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri and celebrates his Divine Comedy, a Florence-based researcher claims to have stumbled on his handwritten work and believes it gives precious insight into his genius.
Hidden away in two libraries in Florence and at the Vatican, the manuscripts date to Dante’s days as a student in Florence in the late 13th century when he was copying out works on the art of government dictated by his teacher, Brunetto Latino.
“The handwriting is schoolboy-like in the early manuscripts but the writing
