Trattatello or brief treatise in praise of Dante

De origine vita studiis et moribus viri clarissimi Dantis Aligerii florentini poete illustris et de operibus compositis ab eodem is recalled by Boccaccio himself in the Esposizioni as a Trattatello in Laude di Dante. It is an encomiastic biography of Dante, close to, in its commemorative inspiration, the De vita et moribus Domini Francisci Petracchi and perfectly in line with that taste for the stories of great personalities testified to by the information Boccaccio collected on Pier Damiani and Livio.

There are three different editions of the work; a first, more detailed, can be dated circa 1351-55; the other two, in abridged form, instead date back to 1360 and 1365. In all probability the Trattello was part of a broader project for the divulgation of Dante’s poetry, of which we have testimony thanks to the syllogies drawn from manuscripts  104 6 of the Biblioteca capitolare di Toledo and the Chigiano L V 176 e L VI 213 (once one code). The work deals with the sequence of Dante’s writings, with the Vita Nuova, Divine Comedy and 15 canzoni, in front of which, by way of proem, there is the story of Dante Alighieri, drawn up by Boccaccio. This narration of Dante’s life is modelled upon the exalting biographies dedicated to Virgilio da Servio and Donato. To the tension of exaltation is however associated an attention to detail which gives the work a journalistic note.  For Boccaccio the themes of poetry and the relationship it has with theology were central.  We thus obtain a key to how to read the Divine Comedy, which highlights the allegorical aspect of Dante’s journey, in the direction of religious orthodoxy. To the mission of the poet-bard, impersonated by Alighieri, Boccaccio addresses his attention through the elucidation of allusive and premonitory dreams, like Dante’s mother’s one, in which a shadow is cast across the future glory of the poet of the Divine Comedy.