Chapter 4: Dante’s Colleague, Dante’s Editor

Though scholars for centuries accepted Federigo Ubaldini’s 1640 mistaken identification of Francesco da Barberino as being “Francesco da Barberino di ser Neri”, this chapter finds instead, using paleographic study of the scripts of the manuscripts of Brunetto’s students, that it was “Franciscus ser Nardi”, the married cleric with daughters needing dowries, who was author of the Officiolum, the Documenti d’Amore, the Reggimenti delle Donne, and the Fiore Novelle, while himself illustrating the Officiolum and the Document, and that he is likely the illuminator known as the “Master of the Dominican Effigies” and the “Tesoretto Master”. He was the head of the officina employing scribes, rubricators, and miniaturists, some even prisoners in the Stinche and elsewhere, producing copies of manuscripts, including those by their teacher, Brunetto Latino, and the Commedia of his fellow student, Dante Alighieri, the “Danti del Cento”, using the efficient Arabic method for copying multiple manuscripts. This Francesco di ser Nardi lived a long life until struck down at 84 in the Black Death in 1348, and is buried in Santa Croce with an epitaph written by Giovanni Boccaccio, that echoes the writings of both Brunetto and Dante.