Exile looms large in our perception of Dante Alighieri's identity as an author. Accordingly, it may be surprising to find that there is comparatively little known about this vagrant period in Dante's life. In Le lettere di Dante, Giuliano Milani and Antonio Montefusco illuminate Dante's exile by centering his letters, bringing together a collection of studies on Dante's correspondence dating to the period after his banishment from Florence (1302-1315). This is the first comprehensive study dedicated to Dante's epistles, which have not yet been treated by critics in an exhaustive volume. Encompassing a range of interdisciplinary voices, the volume reconstructs Dante's world in vibrant colours, leading readers through the material properties of the manuscripts and Dante's writing practices, the cultural and historical details of his experiences, and the wider reception of his work.

The investigation focuses primarily on the twelve letters attributed to Dante, excluding the Letter to Cangrande and the letter to Guido da Polenta. Traditionally considered among his "minor" works, Dante's letters are seldom among the first sources of information about his life and thought. As Montefusco and Milani seek to address this gap, the volume is situated at the beginning of a "new historiographical season" ("una nuova stagione storiografica") and aims to reconnect historical and philological knowledge to the interpretation of literary sources (4). In its focus on Dante's epistolary corpus, which contains a rich number of personal details, the volume also speaks to "the biographical turn" in Dante studies, which corresponds to a wider movement in historical research to reinforce the biographical lens as a valid methodology (3-4). Even in respect to such a towering - and, in many respects, exceptional - figure as Dante, the volume validates that the human experience of one individual can be a fruitful starting point for scholarly investigation. Drawing from the archive of Dante's correspondence and its manuscript tradition, the scholars bring together a variety of scholarly methods to reinforce the links between Dante's writings and the socio-political context.

The volume is divided into three major sections: "Tradizione e critica del testo" (47-102); "Dante e l'ars dictaminis" (105-180); and "Lettera per lettera" (185-568).

In the first section of the volume, Emanuele Romanini, Marco Petoletti and Enrica Zanin examine the textual tradition of the epistles and their editorial history, though philological approaches also reappear in other contributions. By evaluating some of the surviving manuscripts, the scholars reappraise how the major textual witnesses of Dante's letters have been shaped by the interventions of later scribes, compilers and editors. These contributions open a discussion on the character of Dante's readership which will be further developed later in the volume.

In the second section, Antonio Montefusco, Benoît Grévin, Gaia Tomazzoli and Fulvio Delle Donne analyze the relationship between the conventions of the dictamen and Dante's writing practices. How should we understand elements of originality in the context of the medieval rules of rhetoric which governed Dante's epistolary practices? The section addresses Dante's rhetorical inventions in terms of his self-representation, a consideration which engages meaningfully with the cultural questions posed by the scholars later in the volume.

The third section presents a series of close readings of almost all of Dante's letters, organized chronologically according to three periods. Different historical lenses, e.g. cultural, political and legal, are applied to the letters, mapping the different spheres through which Dante wandered in his exile. Paolo Grillo (185-199) and Mirko Tavoni (201-232), for instance, enter into the historical details of Dante's life through a rereading of the letters in light of other accounts and documentary sources. Though Dante's letters have most often been treated as literary documents, the usage of the correspondence as a historical source enables the scholars to recognize its political value, stringing together a constellation of micro-histories of early fourteenth-century northern Italy. At the same time, an emphasis on chronology opens the way for new interpretations of Dante's other literary works. Francesco Somaini, for example, reads the politics of epistle V in conjunction with the imperial project of Emperor Henry VII, an approach which enables the scholar to synchronize the letter with canto VII of Dante's Purgatorio (287-327).

Other contributions in the volume's third part examine Dante's authorial identity from the perspective of cultural and literary history. The scholars underline that the different historical contexts through which Dante travelled in his exile corresponded to different phases of his authorial habitus. For example, the essays by Anna Fontes Baratto (267-285), Luca Marcozzi (239-352) and Rodney Lokaj (509-529) share a strong focus on the intertextuality of Dante's letters, evaluating how Dante strategically engaged with scriptural and classical sources to bolster his authorial legitimacy. These literary approaches are especially successful in highlighting that Dante's letters were involved in the systematic construction of a new poetic and eventually prophetic self-representation. Building on the observations in section two, the scholars outline Dante's cultural profile as a medieval dictator, illuminating the literary horizons which inspired his letters and the cultural milieu into which his letters were disseminated.

A fascinating interdisciplinary theme which animates many of the contributions is the notion of "community" in terms of Dante's vision of his readers. On the most immediate level, the idea of community can be related to the identification of the direct recipients of the letters. For example, the Marquis Moroello Malaspina is confirmed by Giuliano Milani as Moroello di Manfredi di Giovagallo, reinforcing the courtly character of one of the phases of Dante's exile (244-264). The ideological dimensions of the different historical communities in which Dante participated are expanded in later contributions. For example, Luca Marcozzi discusses the literary links between Dante, Petrarch and Salutati in terms of humanist intellectual culture (345-352); Elisa Brilli reads the salutatio of epistle VII as a performative gesture towards the building of a new, avant-garde community of readers (395-427); and Amedeo De Vincentiis reflects on Florence's attempts to dilute Dante's criticism in order to restore their relationship (353-369). All together, the contributions demonstrate that Dante's epistolary exchanges occurred in the context of distinct political-literary communities. These groups themselves came to be defined by the intellectual paradigms developed by Dante. Thinking through the reception of his work over the course of the century and beyond, the scholars invite reflections on how the responses of Dante's contemporaries might influence our own interpretations of his work and his context.

Utilizing a variety of methodological tools, the volume successfully presents a portrait of Dante in different phases of his thought and his political career. But for which fields can research on such a particular subject as Dante's letters be useful? Montefusco and Milani engage us to enter into Dante's immediate experience of exile; nevertheless, through Dante's letters, the political, literary and cultural dimensions of the later medieval Italian milieu are brought into sharper focus. Although the volume does not forget that Dante's view of the social world was shaped by his own representation, the scholars demonstrate that Dante's different identities - as dictator, as political theorist, as poet, as prophet - were also distinct social categories. This approach makes the volume a valuable resource not only for scholars of Dante but all those interested in the cultural and political history of medieval Italy.

Eva Plesnik