Vittore Branca (9 July 1913 in Savona – 28 May 2004 in Venice) was an Italian philologist, literary critic, and academic.

[1] After graduating from the classical high school Gabriello Chiabrera in Savona, in 1931 he attended the entrance examination at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, which at the time was part of FUCI.

As a sign of protest, young Branca appeared before the examination committee wearing the badge of Catholic Action, whose youth circles were suppressed by the fascist regime.

His cordial relations with Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, and by mediation of these with Alcide De Gasperi, made him a prominent member of Florentine anti-fascism, enabling him to represent the Catholic area of resistance in the direction Tuscan CNL.

In 1944 he was contacted by Gentile, then president of the Academy of Italy, who invited him to collaborate "for homeland charity" in the New Anthology magazine.

Branca, in spite of his profound connection with the philosopher, refused the offer, deciding to continue the struggle against Nazism.

In 1998, he discovered a manuscript made under Boccaccio's personal supervision, also of the Decameron, conceived in the mid-fifties of the 1300s and formally drawn up in 1360.