The life of Dante (Trattatello in laude di Dante)

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), writer, poet, mystic and initiate, was one of the fathers of late medieval Italian literature and one of the greatest protagonists of that Humanism that paved the way for the Renaissance. The Trattatello in laude di Dante, a book whose title is usually translated into English as “The Life of Dante”, written by Boccaccio between 1351 and 1355, represents one of the first real biographies, as we understand them in the most current of meanings. For the drafting of this work, Boccaccio - rightly considered the first lover and admirer of the great poet and initiate Dante Alighieri - having in reality never personally known Dante (who was instead a very close friend of his father, Boccaccino di Chellino), tried his hand in a meticulous search for news, through investigations, testimonies and interviews with people who had known him. The image that Boccaccio gives us of Dante Alighieri is that of a personality pervaded and dripping with spirituality (even if he