Prima di Brunetto. Sulla formazione intellettuale dei laici a Firenze ai primi del Duecento

What kind of education did Brunetto Latini, Dante’s mentor, receive? By cross-referencing cultural history and prosopographical data, new light is shed on schooling in the early 1200s. Alongside the traditional literary education, taught mainly in the chapter house school, it appears that another, more technical, type of know-how was imparted in Florence. It is likely that such schooling in the rhetorical, letter-writing and notary arts provided the context in which the myth regarding the Roman origins of Florence, and the enmity between the inhabitants of Florence and Fiesole, began to spread among the lay scholars.