Brunetto Latini

Brunetto Latini (c.1220 - 1294), who signed his name Burnectus Latinus in Latin and Burnecto Latino in Italian, was a Florentine philosopher, scholar and statesman.

Related Topics:
C. - 1220 - 1294 - Florentine - Philosopher

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He was born in Florence, the son of Buonaccorso Latini. He belonged to the Guelph party. After the disaster of Montaperti, which took place while he was on embassy to Alfonso el Sabio of Castile to seek help for Florence against the Sienese, he took refuge for some years (1260-1266) in France, but in 1266, he returned to Tuscany and for some twenty years held successive high offices. Giovanni Villani says that he was a great philosopher and a consummate master of rhetoric, not only in knowing how to speak well, but how to write well. He was the author of various works in prose and verse.

Related Topics:
Buonaccorso Latini - Guelph party - Montaperti - Alfonso el Sabio - 1260 - 1266 - France - Tuscany - Giovanni Villani - Rhetoric

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While in France, he wrote his Italian Tesoretto and in French his prose Tresor, both summaries of the encyclopaedic knowledge of the day (the Italian 13th-century translation known as Tesoro was misattributed to Bono Giamboni).

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He also translated into Italian the Rettorica and three orations by Cicero and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

Related Topics:
Cicero - Aristotle

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He is famous as the friend, teacher and counsellor of Dante Alighieri, who immortalized him in The Divine Comedy (see Inferno, XV. 82-87). Many of the characters in Dante's Inferno can also be found as flesh and blood persons amongst the legal and diplomatic documents Brunetto Latino wrote in Latin.

Related Topics:
Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy

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