ABSTRACT
The earliest textual example of written Italian dates from the tenth century. In the ensuing 300 years, poetry was written in several dialects, until Tuscan was suddenly transm uted into one of the world’s great literary languages by the genius of D ante Alighieri (1265-1321); the Divina Commedia was written between 1310 and 1314. Petrarca and Boccaccio complete the trio of great fourteenth-century writers. The prestige thus conferred upon Tuscan - specifically Florentine - usage ensured its adoption in the nineteenth century, when political union brought the question of a unified national language to a head. Alessandro Manzoni, who presided over the committee (1868) which took this decision, had been himself impelled to rewrite his masterpiece I Promessi Sposi in Florentine Tuscan (the original version, 1825-7, was in Manzoni’s native Lombardian dialect; Tuscan version 1840).
