The work which is traditionally known as the Rime is in actual fact a thematically and formally mixed collection of 88 compositions, described by Contini as “the most superb collection of ‘estravaganti’”[1]. Dante had never intended to arrange these lyrical poems into a single work, apart from the 31 texts which became part of the Vita Nuova. In 1921, however, Barbi felt the need to arrange them into a more or less thematic and chronological order of seven books, with an appendix of lyrical poems of dubious attribution. Book I contains the poems which Dante included in the Vita Nuova, while Book II, Altre rime del tempo della Vita Nuova, comprises Dante’s early compositions, written before or around the same time as his libello, namely his little book (as he called the Vita Nuova). These include, alongside texts stylistically influenced by Guittone, such as the tenzone with Dante da Maiano, poems that point to the strong stilnuovo influence of both Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti. Book III contains the comic-realist tenzone with Forese Donati. Book IV, Rime allegoriche e dottrinali, attests Dante’s new commitment as cantor rectitudinis, poet of rectitude, heralding ethical and moral themes in elaborate structures, nonetheless with underlying Guittonian. influences. Book V, Altre rime d’amore e di corrispondenza, includes his noteworthy correspondence with Cino da Pistoia. The rime petrose are contained in Book VI, while the final Book is dedicated to the Rime varie del tempo dell’esilio, among which should be pointed out at least Doglia mi reca (“Sorrow arouses”) a powerful condemnation of greed, and Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute (“Three ladies have come to my heart”) Dante’s dignified lamentatio on his exile.

This arrangement is currently under discussion. While Contini's 1939 edition excluded only the poems of the Vita Nuova, the new edition by De Robertis in 2002 proposes a much more radical revision, overturning Barbi’s canonical sequence completely and rearranging Dante’s lyrical poems in accordance with the earliest manuscript tradition.

[1] G. Contini, Introduzione alle ‘Rime’ di Dante (1939), in Id., Un’idea di Dante. Saggi danteschi, Torino, Einaudi, 1976, p. 4.