Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-261) and index.

Preliminary Material -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE: BRUNI AND BIONDO: DRAMATIS PERSONAE OF THE FLORENTINE DEBATE -- CHAPTER TWO: DANTE'S LINGUISTIC THEORIES: ELIXIR VITAE OF THE FLORENTINE DEBATE -- CHAPTER THREE: DANTE, BRUNI AND THE BEGINNING OF THE QUESTIONE DELLA LINGUA -- CHAPTER FOUR: DANTE, BIONDO AND THE BEGINNING OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY -- CHAPTER FIVE: THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE FLORENTINE DEBATE: THE CONTRIBUTION OF GUARINO, POGGIO, AND FILELFO -- CHAPTER SIX: THE FLORENTINE DEBATE AND THE UNIQUE POSITION OF VALLA -- CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FLORENTINE DEBATE, ALBERTI, AND THE REAFFIRMATION OF THE QUESTIONE DELLA LINGUA -- CHAPTER EIGHT: DANTE'S NOTION OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS VERNACULAR: A REAPPRAISAL -- CHAPTER NINE: \'LA LINGUA CH'IO PARLAI FU TUTTA SPENTA\': DANTE'S REAPPRAISAL OF THE ADAMIC LANGUAGE (PARADISO XXVI, 124-138) -- APPENDIX ONE: THE BINOMIAL LATINA LINGUA/GRAMMATICA IN DANTE AND THE HUMANISTS -- APPENDIX TWO: INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA I, XI-XV; II, VI AND PURGATORIO XXIV, 42-62; XXVI, 92-123: A CLARIFICATION OF THE DOLCE STIL NOVO -- APPENDIX THREE: A RECENT CONTRIBUTION TO THE FLORENTINE DEBATE OF 1435: MIRKO TAVONI'S LATINO, GRAMMATICA, VOLGARE. STORIA DI UNA QUESTIONE UMANISTICA -- NOTES -- INDEX.

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One of the burning issues of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy was the question of language. The single most important figure to treat this subject in the late Middle Ages was Dante Alighieri. The Dantean argument on language with its implicit acknowledgment of a classical bilingualism and its faith in the efficacy of the vernacular stimulated and defined the debate on language among the humanists of the 15th century. This book aims at a novel and open-ended reading of Dante's literature on language and at a systematic reconstruction of the whole body of humanistic literature on linguistic phenomena. In so doing, it recaptures the theoretical assumptions — philological empiricism, political ideology, stylistic imperatives, literary aspirations — that shaped the thinking of Bruni, Biondo, Alberti, Guarino, Poggio, Filelfo, Valla, Landino and Lorenzo de' Medici. This work goes beyond the strict, technical periphery of linguistic enquiry, and becomes a study of intellectual history.