Equicola's Knowledge of Dante

It is well known to students of the Italian Renaissance that the regained supremacy of the vernacular in the latter half of the fifteenth century, first in Tuscany and then in other parts of the peninsula, did much to stimulate the revival in the study of Dante. The haughty contempt, implicit or explicit, that many of the early humanists felt for the Divina Commedia then gave way to enthusiastic efforts at text interpretation and æsthetic appreciation on the part of poets, artists, and scholars. Nor was this renewed interest in Dante confined to Italy; indeed, the Divina Commedia was much studied even beyond the Alps, where it was edited and translated several times.