Entirely devoted to Dante's Epistles, and as such unprecedented, Le lettere di Dante is a monumental undertaking both in size (626 pages) and in scope: it is a specialized collection with two editors, twenty-two other contributors, and a total of twenty-six essays. Equally unprecedented is the positioning of the letters, which are traditionally viewed as ancillary, at the center of this critical endeavor, and their treatment as documentary evidence of Dante's historical and intellectual biography. In tune with Dante's polyphonic mode of understanding and distinctive encyclopedism integrating the various forms of knowledge he explores, the authors of the volume—Dante scholars, medievalists, historians, scholars of rhetoric and of the law, Latinists, philologists, linguists, paleographers, and comparatists—contribute their specific disciplinary perspectives and diverse methodological approaches to give this volume a truly Dantean depth and breadth.

One of the merits of the book is the fresh reappraisal of the manuscript tradition and the editorial history of the letters, their transmission in Latin and in vernacular translations, and the social and cultural context in which the transmission took place. This fruitful way of looking at texts in context characterizes the editors’ intellectual project and Montefusco's contributions, in particular, both in his introductory chapter and in his essay in the body of the volume. The first of the book's three “macrosections,” “Textual and Critical Tradition,” consists of two philological studies that propose innovative evaluations of the two major testimonials of Dante's letters: the Vat. Pal. Lat 1729 (V) and the Laur. Plut. 29, 8, respectively (Romanini and Petoletti), and an essay that retraces the history of the three nineteenth-century editions of the letters through Karl Witte's documents in the Strasbourg University Library (Zanin).

The second macrosection, “Dante and the ars dictaminis,” brings another novelty to the attention of scholars: the textual proof of Dante's familiarity with thirteenth-century epistolography, a tradition in which he legitimately partakes as dictator illustris, both with his theoretical pronouncements and in his own praxis of letter writing (Montefusco). The essays, recapitulated and complemented by the book's concluding chapter (Milani and Montefusco), examine Dante's epistolary style and his usage of various versions of the cursus and of specific tropes and topoi vis-à-vis the most important thirteenth-century Summae Dictaminis, such as those of Pier delle Vigne, Tommaso di Capua, Riccardo da Pofi, and Guido Faba—exemplary, in turn, of different cultural and political environments such as the Swabian and Papal courts, and the culture of the Communes (Grévin, Tomazzoli, Della Donne). Those interested in how Dante's political thought took shape will find in these studies abundant evidence and inspiration.

The third macrosection, “Letter by Letter,” chronologically organized into three subsections, presents a series of close readings of the twelve letters under consideration (those to Cangrande della Scala and Guido da Polenta are excluded). “From the Militance with the Whites to the Stay in Lunigiana” (Eps. 1–4) casts new light on the vicissitudes in Dante's relationship with the Universitas partis Alborum—i.e., his fellow White Guelph exiles (Grillo, Tavoni)—and on the interdependence of poetic, philosophical, and political concerns emerging in the correspondence with Cino da Pistoia and Moroello Malaspina (Milani, Villa). “The Years of the Empire” tackles two groups of letters: Eps. 5–7, connected to the advent of Henry VII (Fontes Baratto, Somaini, Marcozzi, De Vincentiis, Steinberg, Brilli), and Eps. 8–10, written on behalf of Countess Gherardesca Guidi of Battifolle (Bartoli Langeli, Canaccini).

Among the contributions of particular interest to this reviewer, Somaini's intertextual reading of Ep. 5 argues compellingly for a contiguity between the letter and Purgatorio 6 as two components of a “dossier”—one might say prophetic and utopian—that Dante had prepared for Henry VII to denounce the miseries of Italy and entrust the emperor with its redemption. Linking reception to political economy, De Vincentiis's study on Ep. 6 to “the most iniquitous” Florentines provides an analysis of the letter's readership and of its ideological reception among the Guelfs in fourteenth-century Florence, along with a comprehensive historical account of the financial relations between Guelph Florence and Angevine Naples vis-à-vis Dante's respective accusations of cupidity and avarice. With Steinberg, the exegesis of Ep. 6 takes a juridical turn as he focuses on the prescriptive rights invoked by the Florentines to claim their independence from the laws of the empire and Dante's rejection of such claims. The strengths of the third subsection, “Prophetic Projections and the Impossibility of a Return” (Eps. 11–12), include a broader perspective on the last years of Dante's life (Milani) against the backdrop of Guelf history in Central Italy (Kistner); the rehabilitation of Boccaccio as an accurate copyist through a paleographic, philological, and historical examination of Ep. 11 (Potestà); and a new assessment of the biblical and patristic sources in Dante's quest for a prophetic legitimation (Lokaj).

This book is a superb scholarly achievement and an invaluable resource for Dante specialists and medievalists alike.