It's Romantic Tuesday--Again!!

La Vita Nuova

In that book which is
My memory...
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words...
Here begins a new life

- Dante Alighieri



One good thing I found for romantic Tuesday ties back to an excellent book I am currently reading: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
According to Wikipedia:
"What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy."
I get it--from the poem above I can see why everyone reads Dante.