ABSTRACT
We can begin with a tale, or rather with a legend – or better yet, with a very peculiar origin myth. Around the beginning of the ’40s of the fourteenth century, Giovanni Boccaccio transcribed in his ‘Zibaldone Laurenziano’ an enigmatic and fascinating epistle for which there exists no other direct evidence. 1 For more than four centuries this text remained completely unknown. Some of the sensational reports contained within it were brought to light only thanks to Boccaccio himself: as we will see, Boccaccio related these reports in some of the most important essays which he dedicated to Dante’s work, the Trattatello in laude di Dante (first draft, §§ 192–193; second draft, §§ 128–131) and the Esposizioni sopra la “Comedia” (accessus, §§ 75–77), without ever mentioning, however, the source from which he had taken them. The first person to make this document accessible in modern times was the erudite Lorenzo Mehus, who, in 1759, printed it in the preface to his edition of the Latin letters of Ambrogio Traversari. Prior to that date, nobody, excluding of course Boccaccio, had any way of knowing of it directly. 2
