Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the problem of a proper historical evaluation of Dante's exile in keeping with recent propositions coming from studies of medieval history and the historical sociology of intellectual groups. It focuses Dante's exile in order to identify some critical issues posed by the historical fact as well as textual data. The book highlights the paradoxes of authorship and authority launched by Dante and bequeathed by him to the Italian literary tradition. It focuses Italian discourses and practices of diplomacy and offers a penetrating re-evaluation of Petrarch's diplomatic activities and a new insight into the interface between his absorption of classical and patristic sources in relation to political affairs. The book illustrates how the sequence of poems attributed to him one of the earliest English sequences of its kind uses conventional courtly themes and stylistics to express unremittingly political preoccupations.