It appears that modern Italy was unified by literature long before it existed as a single nation on the map. Although up to a century and a half ago the Italian peninsula was still divided into many different territories, each developing its own local dialect, for centuries Italians – wherever they were from – had also taken common pride and joy in the reading of literary geniuses such as Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, and Giovanni Boccaccio.

As a matter of fact, these poets were recognized as the foremost authorities in vernacular – that is “non-Latin” – literature already during the Middle Ages: for this reason, the Florentine literary dialect in which their masterpieces were written would soon start to set the tone for the later development of standard Italian, the language we now call La Bella Lingua (“the beautiful language”).