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Comedy.
    A brief mention should be made of
Il
fiore
(
The Flower
), the authenticity of which has been questioned by many scholars. It is a sequence of 232 sonnets based on the French
Roman de la Rose.
Those few who are sure that this allegorical story of a successful seduction was written by Dante give two reasons: first, the author is referred to as Durante, which is a form of Dante; second, it is much too well composed to have been written by anyone else but Dante.
Il
fiore,
which is worth reading in its own right, is to be found in one manuscript of the late thirteenth century (first published in 1881 in Paris by Ferdinand Castets).
    There are approximately fifty-four (and a possible twenty-six more) short poems (not included in the
Vita nuova
or
Convivio)
that Dante did not group together or organize in any way, but that modern editors have collected and called the
Canzoniere
or
Rime
(
Songbook
or
Rhymes
). They consist of scattered lyrics written over a long period of the poet’s life, many of which he probably tried to, but could not, fit into the structure of the
Vita nuova
or
Convivio.
Many, of course, were inspired by Beatrice, but there are some written for other women; some done as exercises, as part of his correspondence with other poets; and some composed simply to please ladies and gentlemen who were fond of poetry.
    Dante undoubtedly wrote many letters. Unfortunately, only ten letters considered authentic have come down to us; all ten are written in Latin, and none is of a personal or intimate nature. There are also three other letters that Dante may have written on behalf of the countess of Battifolle, but they do not reflect his own thoughts.
    To the student of the
Divine Comedy
the most interesting of Dante’s letters is the one addressed to Can Grande della Scala in which the author sets forth his purpose and method in writing his poem. The letter is extant in six manuscripts, three of which (all sixteenth-century) contain the letter in its entirety. He talks about the different meanings contained in the
Divine Comedy:
the first is called literal, the second allegorical or mystical. We learn that on the literal level the poem is about the state of souls after death; on the allegorical level, “The subject is man, liable to the reward or punishment of Justice, according to the use he has made of his free will. ”
    In his letter he also discusses why he has called his poem a “comedy. ” The word, he says, is derived from
comus
and
oda
and means a “rustic song. ” Unlike tragedy, which begins in tranquillity but comes to a sad end, comedy may begin under adverse circumstances, but it always comes to a happy end. The style or language of comedy is humble while that of tragedy is lofty. Therefore, because his poem begins in Hell and has a happy ending in Paradise, and because it is written in a most humble language, which is the Italian vernacular, it is called the
Commedia.
The letter goes on with a meticulous, almost word-by-word examination of the beginning verses of the opening canto of the
Paradiso
up to the invocation to Apollo. The letter is thought by many to be an important piece of literary criticism seen in the framework of Dante’s time and tradition, and as such it certainly is worth reading in its own right.
THE DIVINE COMEDY
    Dante’s masterpiece is, of course, the
Divine Comedy
(the word
divina
was added to
commedia
by posterity). It is to some degree a result of his determination to fulfill the promise he made at the close of the
Vita nuova:
“If it be the wish of Him in whom all things flourish that my life continue for a few years, I hope to write of her that which has never been written of any lady. ”
    No one knows when Dante began composing his great poem; some say perhaps as early as 1307. In any case the
Inferno
was completed in 1314, and it is probable that the final touches to the
Paradiso
were, as Boccaccio states, not made until 1321, the year of Dante’s death. The