Italy possesses one of the richest and most influential literatures of Europe, stretching back to the thirteenth century. This first substantial history of Italian literature to appear in the English language for forty years provides a comprehensive survey of Italian writing from its earliest origins up to the present day.

Leading scholars describe and assess the work of writers who have contributed to the Italian literary tradition, including Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Renaissance humanists, Machiavelli, Ariosto and Tasso, pioneers and practitioners of opera and drama from commedia dell'arte to Pirandello and Dario Fo, the nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets from Leopardi to Montale, and the novelists from Manzoni to Calvino and Eco.

The Cambridge History of Italian Literature is accessible to the general reader as well as to students and scholars: translations are provided, along with a map, chronological charts, and up-to-date and substantial bibliographies.