Amoroso galateo dantesco: la ballata «Donne io non so» e la fortuna trecentesca della «Vita nova»

The manuscript tradition of the ballad Donne, io non so is split radically in two. A first group of manuscripts provides the ballad in monostrophic form. In two other manuscripts, Riccardiano 2317 (ante 1372) and BNCF Palatino 613 (sec. XV), we find that two more stanzas and a long prose letter have been added to the same ballad. It is still uncertain whether the monostrophic form of Donne, io non so was originally composed by Dante Alighieri. We have no information either about the author of the ballad in its pluristrophic form and of the annexed love letter in the two mentioned Florentine manuscripts. In this longer and more recent version of the ballad, we can however discern an important and still unexplored witness of the late fortune of the Vita nova: a text which someone perceived, read and used as a new and influential sum of rules in love matters.