The Vita Nuova: manuscript and editorial history

The Vita nuova is extant in 43 manuscripts which, according to Michele Barbi’s investigations, all derive from a single archetype close to the original. The manuscripts are arranged into two families, α and β, each of which is further subdivided into k and b, and s and x. Among the manuscripts that are essential for reconstructing the text, at least three codices should be mentioned: the Chig. L VIII 305, from the first half of the fourteenth century; the Toledo manuscript, in Boccaccio's hand, which extrapolated the divisioni from Dante’s text, namely the prose commentaries to the poems, relegating them to the margins, from which the large b group derives; finally, for sub-archetype β, the Martelli 12, which can be dated to the early decades of the fourteenth century. The non-organic line, namely those manuscripts that circulated separately from the Vita nuova itself, is of relevance to the poems of the prosimetron. These can be divided into the tradizione estravagante, those circulating freely prior to their inclusion within Dante’s libello, and the tradizione per estratto, those that were subsequently excluded from the body of prose. The estravagante group appears, at least in some cases, to point to a version that predates their inclusion in the Vita nuova, thereby documenting the existence of different versions by the same author. The princeps of the Vita nuova (Sermartelli, 1576, Florence) is of little significance on the textual level, although it displays a systematic reduction of reference to sacred themes and terms.

 

In 1907 Barbi produced a magnificent edition of the Vita nuova which became the standard reference version and was reprinted with a few minor changes in 1932. It was only in 1996 that Gorni published a revision of the text of Dante’s libello (now entitled Vita nova), with a number of (still hotly debated) changes of note to Barbi’s version. Among these changes are a reduction in the number of chapters (from 42 to 31), a new linguistic patina (reconstructed on the questionable basis of the uses prevailing in the earliest manuscripts) and highly conservative graphics.