SOURCE: Witt, Ronald G. “Brunetto Latini and the Italian Tradition of Ars Dictaminis.” Stanford Italian Review 3, no. 1 (spring 1983): 5-24.

In the following essay, Witt examines Brunetto's adaptation of the rhetorical principles found in Cicero's De Inventione to the practice of letter-writing in his La Rettorica and The Book of the Treasure.

Living in exile in France early in the 1260's, cut off from the public life of Florence, Brunetto Latini, the learned dictator and former politician, spent a portion of his free time translating into Tuscan and commenting on Cicero's De inventione, one of the two most popular manuals of ancient Latin rhetoric throughout the Middle Ages. Written as a gift for his Florentine host in Paris, this translation with commentary, entitled Rettorica, was designed to provide guidance in composition to those without an advanced formal education in Latin rhetoric.¹

The Rettorica was left unfinished but the author...