Any one wishing to investigate the literary development of the golden century of early Italian literature, the Trecento, must read Natalino Sapegnos extensive writings on the subject, in particular his Storia Letteraria del Trecento (A Literary History of the Fourteenth Century). The original Italian edition appeared in April 1963 as part of the vast collection, La Letteratura Italiana - Storia e Testi (Italian Literature - History and Texts), directed by Raffaele Mattioli, Pietro Pancrazi, and Alfredo Schiaffini for the Riccardo Ricciardi publishing house. Storia Letteraria del Trecento focuses equally on Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio while minor writers are introduced in proportion to their importance and position in the cultural, historical, and social events of the time.

Vincenzo Traversa, a United States citizen born and educated in Italy, has taught Italian language and literature at UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of Kansas. He holds a doctorate in English language and literature from the University of Naples and a PhD in Romance languages and literatures from UCLA. Traversa is Professor Emeritus of Italian and Humanities at California State University, East Bay, where he served as chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures for thirteen years. His works include Parola e Pensiero; Idioma in Prospettiva; Frequency Dictionary of Italian Words (coauthor); Racconti di Alberto Moravia; Luigi Capuana: Critic and Novelist; The 'Laude' in the Middle Ages (Peter Lang, 1994); Giovanni Boccaccio, Theseid of the Nuptials of Emilia (Teseida delle nozze di Emilia) (Peter Lang, 2002); and Three Italian Epistolary Novels: Foscolo, De Meis, Piovene - Translations, Introductions, and Backgrounds (Peter Lang, 2005). He was awarded the title of Knight in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and was also honored in the 2000 edition of Who's Who Among America's Teachers.

Contents: The Literary Civilization of the Age of Dante – Dante – Between Dante and Petrarch – Petrarch – Boccaccio – The Literature of the Minor Writers.