{"id":19483,"date":"2026-08-18T13:41:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/?p=19483"},"modified":"2026-08-18T13:46:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:46:04","slug":"from-harvard-to-uri-professor-michelangelo-la-luna-publishes-landmark-study-of-a-medieval-dante-manuscript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/news\/from-harvard-to-uri-professor-michelangelo-la-luna-publishes-landmark-study-of-a-medieval-dante-manuscript\/","title":{"rendered":"From Harvard to URI: Professor Michelangelo La Luna Publishes Landmark Study of a Medieval Dante Manuscript"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly three decades after discovering an overlooked Dante manuscript while pursuing graduate studies at Harvard University, Michelangelo La Luna, professor of Italian<\/a> at the University of Rhode Island, has published the first modern scholarly edition of one of the earliest vernacular commentaries on the Divine Comedy<\/em>. The volume, Falso Boccaccio. Chiose alla \u2018Commedia\u2019 di Dante Alighieri contenute nel manoscritto MS Ital 54 Houghton Library, Harvard University<\/em> (False Boccaccio. Chiose alla Commedia di Dante Alighieri contained in the manuscript MS Ital. 54, Houghton Library, Harvard University<\/em>), is the culmination of nearly thirty years of philological research and offers new perspectives on one of the most intriguing and long-debated texts in Dante studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published in Italy by conSenso Publishing\u2014managed by Giuseppe Zangaro\u2014the 700-plus-page volume presents the first philologically verified edition of Houghton Library manuscript MS Ital. 54, a fifteenth-century copy preserving the Inferno<\/em> and Paradiso<\/em> together with the vernacular commentary traditionally attributed to the anonymous author known as the False Boccaccio. For centuries, the commentary circulated under Giovanni Boccaccio’s name and was regarded as an authoritative source by generations of readers, including the scholars of the Accademia della Crusca (the world’s oldest linguistic academy, founded in Florence). Despite its historical importance, however, it has never received either a complete modern critical edition or a comprehensive historical and philological reassessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project began in the late 1990s, when La Luna, then a graduate student at Harvard, first learned of the little-studied manuscript preserved in the university’s Houghton Library. Copied in 1457, the manuscript had never been critically examined or made available through a modern scholarly edition. What initially appeared to be a promising research topic gradually developed into a long-term scholarly undertaking. Over nearly three decades, La Luna examined the manuscript in detail, compared it with related witnesses, reconstructed its textual history, and investigated the intellectual and cultural environment in which the commentary was produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The manuscript also occupies an important place in American cultural history. Acquired in England in 1871 by Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard’s first professor of the History of Art, it became one of the first two manuscripts of Dante’s Divine Comedy<\/em> to reach the United States. Today, it remains one of the treasures of Harvard University’s internationally renowned Dante collections.<\/p>\n\n\n

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LaLuna’s presentation at the Italian Senate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Far more than a textual edition, the volume opens with an extensive 200-page introduction that functions as a scholarly monograph in its own right. Combining textual criticism with historical, linguistic, and literary analysis, La Luna reconstructs the history of the commentary’s transmission and reception, reexamines its textual tradition, and presents a new interpretive framework for understanding one of the earliest vernacular commentaries on Dante. Drawing on decades of archival and philological research, the study reopens several long-standing debates in Dante scholarship by presenting new textual evidence and fresh interpretations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The volume also reconstructs the complex history of the commentary’s changing attribution\u2014from its longstanding association with Giovanni Boccaccio to the nineteenth-century recognition that it was the work of another author\u2014and revisits the many unsuccessful attempts to produce a complete critical edition. By examining previously overlooked textual relationships, La Luna also offers new evidence concerning the connections between the anonymous commentary, Benvenuto da Imola, and circles associated with Franciscan Spiritual thought, including the possible role of Tedaldo della Casa in preserving and transmitting particularly rare materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The publication reflects the University of Rhode Island’s commitment to supporting long-term humanities research. Completion of the project was made possible through a Project Completion Grant from URI’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development and a Subvention Grant from the Center for the Humanities, support that enabled the completion and publication of years of archival, philological, and historical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book has received an enthusiastic response from both scholars and the general public in Italy. During the summer of 2026, La Luna was invited to present his research at twelve prestigious venues across the country, highlighted by a presentation at the Italian Senate in Rome and appearances at leading cultural institutions, including the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici in Naples, the Accademia Cosentina in Cosenza, the Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti in San Giovanni in Fiore, Calabria, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Siritide in Policoro, Basilicata, the Eminalis Cultural Festival in Rionero nel Vulture, Basilicata, and the Biblioteca Comunale of Atina, Lazio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upcoming engagements include the International Benvenuto da Imola Conference at the University of Bologna, with additional presentations planned or under consideration at universities, cultural institutions, and secondary schools in Rome, Florence, Ferrara, Certaldo Alto, Salerno, Benevento and Ravenna. Several of the hosting institutions also recognized La Luna’s scholarly contribution with commemorative awards, including the Dante Medal of the Dante Alighieri Society of Salerno, awarded during his book presentation at the Italian Senate, and distinctions presented by the Lions Club of Corigliano-Rossano, the Kiwanis Club of Acri, and ArcheoClub del Vulture APS Basilicata during the Eminalis Festival in Rionero in Vulture. The volume has also received extensive coverage in newspapers, online publications, and television, including a feature on Italy’s national broadcaster, RAI TGR3.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Although the newly published book focuses on a single manuscript, it represents the first stage of a much broader scholarly undertaking: the first complete critical edition of the Chiose alla Commedia<\/em> traditionally attributed to the False Boccaccio, a project envisioned by generations of scholars but never brought to completion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What began as the discovery of a little-known manuscript in Harvard’s Houghton Library has become a major contribution to Dante scholarship and an example of how sustained investment in humanities research at the University of Rhode Island can produce work of international significance. By bringing new attention to one of the earliest readers of Dante and illuminating the intellectual world in which the Divine Comedy<\/em> first circulated, La Luna’s research strengthens the ties between Harvard University’s historic collections, the University of Rhode Island’s commitment to scholarly excellence, and Italy’s rich literary and cultural heritage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LaLuna publishes the first modern scholarly edition of one of the earliest vernacular commentaries on the “Divine Comedy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5153,"featured_media":19484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[375,7,380],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-profile","category-news","category-points-of-pride-2026"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19483"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19491,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19483\/revisions\/19491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}