Centuries before the Unification of Italy, a text brought together the peninsula under the hat of Literature: the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
If it is true that in England and Germany the first printed text was the Bible, in Italy it was the work of the Medieval poet.
A text that continues to amaze: a fortuitous case has in fact brought back to light new Dante fragments following the earthquake that struck Umbria in 2016.
Fragments of manuscripts dated between 1300 and 1500 which were later used to line notary documents and which show variations to the Dante's text not present in the Tuscan-Florentine tradition.
Rodney Lokaj, Professor of Italian Philology, is analysing the fragments and told on SBS Italian the wonder of rediscovering the text: "The Divine Comedy [...] a driving force that unites the Italian spirit".
