Bologna

Dante’s frequent and detailed references to Bologna in his works show that he was familiar with this lively city, although it is not clear exactly when he was there. An early visit that took place some time between 1286 and 1287 will have enabled him to absorb influences from the stimulating atmosphere of the city’s Studium, and familiarize with the new poetics proposed by Guinizzelli. Documenting Dante’s presence in the city is a 1287 transcription based on Emilian phonetics of the sonnet No me poriano zamai far emenda, executed by the notary Enrichetto delle Querce in a Bolognese document. This is the earliest attestation of a sonnet by Dante, who, according to De Robertis, deliberately dictated it in the Bolognese vernacular. A second visit to Bologna make have taken place after his exile, around 1305, while he was writing De vulgari eloquentia and the Convivio, - works whose ideas on language and politics no doubt benefited from the discussions taking place among the teachers and pupils of in the Bolognese university. In the De vulgari eloquentia, Dante acknowledges the excellence of Bolognese compared with the other city dialects, pointing out the existence of spatial varieties of language by referring to those found across the city’s various boroughs (De vulg. El., I 10 9). He makes numerous references to people and places in Bologna above all in Inferno, while in the Eclogues he turns down Giovanni del Virgilio’s invitation to transfer to Bologna.

Several sources document the rapid and considerable success of Dante’s works in Bologna: transcriptions of extracts from his Rime or from the Commedia, at the foot of notorial documents; codices important in the transmission of the Commedia, such as the so-called Codex Riccardiano-Braidense and the Urbinate Lat. 366, on which the most recent edition of the poem is based; finally, a number of distinguished commentators, among whom, to mention only the main commentators of the fourteenth century, Graziolo Bambaglioli, Jacomo della Lana and Benvenuto da Imola.