The Tuscan language (lingua toscana), or the Tuscan dialect (dialetto toscano) is an Italo-Dalmatian language spoken in Tuscany, Italy.
Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine variety. Italian became the language of culture for all the people of Italy, thanks to the prestige of the masterpieces of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. It would later become the official language of all the Italian states and of the Kingdom of Italy, when it was formed. At no time, however, has Standard Italian been identical to genuine Tuscan.
The Tuscan language is a dialect complex composed of many local variants, with minor differences among them.
The main subdivision is between Northern Tuscan dialects and Southern Tuscan dialects.
The Northern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west):
The Southern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west):
Excluding the inhabitants of Massa-Carrara province, who speak an Emilian-type dialect, around 3,500,000 people speak the Tuscan dialect.
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante (UK /ˈdænti/, US /ˈdɑːnteɪ/; Italian: [ˈdante]; c1265–1321), was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem Commedia, later named La divina commedia (Divine Comedy), considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language".
Dante was born in Florence, Italy. The exact date of Dante's birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in La Divina Commedia, "the Inferno" (Halfway through the journey we are living, implying that Dante was around 35 years old, as the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and as the imaginary travel took place in 1300, Dante must have been born around 1265). Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151-154). In 1265 the Sun was in Gemini approximately during the period of May 11 to June 11.