SOURCE: East, James R. “Brunetto Latini's Rhetoric of Letter Writing.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 54, no. 3 (October 1968): 241-46.

In the following essay, East stresses the historical significance of Brunetto's writings on vernacular rhetoric contained in his The Book of the Treasure.

In thirteenth-century Florence Brunetto Latini gained prominence as a notary and as a literary figure who, possibly as an associate and certainly as a writer, strongly influenced Dante. In the Inferno, Canto XV, Dante immortalized Latini by referring to him as his master. Some readers take this reference to mean that Latini was Dante's teacher, but in actuality Dante refers to one whose writings helped direct him in his own composition.¹ As the two part, Latini says to Dante in Canto XV, “Remember my Treasure in which I still live on. I ask no more.”² Latini's reference to Treasure is probably to his Li Livre dou Tresor (The...