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Updated: June 5, 2025
Messer Brunetto was discoursing very learnedly about Messer Virgilius, and how he did, in a measure, form and model himself upon Messer Homerus, when he suddenly became aware that he was wasting his periods upon empty air for of us where we lurked he knew nothing. Turning round, he saw where Dante stood pensive, and called to him sharply, asking him why he dawdled.
So I urged and so I persuaded, and Messer Guido and I, that were curious to have speech with Dante, but had no desire to have speech with the elder, slipped apart and hid ourselves in the shadow of the pillars of the Arcade that faced the Portinari palace. Guido and I had scarcely taken cover when Messer Brunetto came into view on the lip of the bridge.
It was a brave and chivalrous soldier that stood there in the sight of all Florence, a figure infinitely better to my eyes than the scholar who dogged the footsteps of Brunetto Latini, or even than the poet whose songs had enchanted the city.
You may be pleased here to remind me of the discourse between Messer Brunetto Latini and Dante, which I strove to overhear on that May morning in the Piazza Santa Felicita, to which I will make bold to answer that I did not truly overhear much at the time, and that the substance of what I set down was garnered later, both from Dante and from Messer Brunetto.
Messer Brunetto held up his hands in a horror that was only part pretended. "Do not blaspheme!" he cried. Dante smiled for a moment at his whimsical vehemence, and then went on with his own thoughts, talking as one that mused aloud. "It must be glorious to be a great poet, to weave one's dreams into wonderful words that live in men's hearts forever.
It is a square stuccoed structure, stained light green, and covered by a dome, a tasteless monument, embellished with stucco medallions, inside, of the poet, of Virgil, of Brunetto Latini, the poet's master, and of his patron, Guido da Polenta.
To the same Brunetto Latini the teacher of Dante who, in his 'Canzoni, adopts the customary manner of the 'Trovatori, we owe the first-known 'versi sciolti, or blank hendecasyllabic verses, and in his apparent absence of form, a true and genuine passion suddenly showed itself.
Dante was born in Florence, of the noble family of Alighieri, which was attached to the papal, or Guelph party, in opposition to the imperial, or Ghibelline. He was but a child when death deprived him of his father; but his mother took the greatest pains with his education, placing him under the tuition of Brunetto Latini, and other masters of eminence.
Cimabue took Giotto from his father, glad to be rid of the misshapen child that had to be fed and could do nothing much in return; and from the smoky hut in the little Tuscan valley the lad was taken straight to the old nobleman painter's house in the most beautiful city of Italy, was handed over to Brunetto Latini, Dante's tutor, to be taught book-learning, and was allowed to spend the other half of his time in the painting room, at the elbow of the greatest living painter.
Dante, thus addressed, raised his head from the cup of his palms and his elbows from the parapet, and, with a pleasant smile on his face, came down to where Messer Brunetto had halted.
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