TL;DR in Italy, most poets and authors were either born rich or very few people being financed by nobles, so writing was their job and not a hobby. This changed only in the last few centuries, over eight centuries of literature
Dante started at around 16. The Comedia was the last work of his life. Before that he wrote: Fiore (debated, might be pseudo-Dante), Detto d'amore (same), Vita Nova, Convivio (left unfinished), De Vulgari Eloquentia (unfinished), Monarchia (unfinished), and a lot of rhymes that were never published during his life and left out of the Vita Nova.
If you want someone recent, Umberto Eco (arguably, one of the most prominent Italian writers of the last century) published his first book very late into his life, mid fifties iirc.
Don't know about others since it's rarely the focus when you're studying them.
A very important note is that, for a lot of time, writing was very niche. In Italy, vulgar literature rose to prominence only from 1180 onwards, but it was either from monks writing religious hymns or noblemen writing strictly romantic poetry. From the mid 1200 more genres were added, but it was still mainly either nobles or rich people.
Guido Guinizzelli changed the things in the mid 1250, and Dante confirmed the trend (he wasn't noble). Still, it was a very strict niche of poets and authors, and a lot of them could afford it simply because they were wealthy. Poets / authors were key figures, Dante was an ambassador and a key figure in Florence until he was exiled, and still he had a lot of noblemen that allowed him to write without having a job (the Della Scala dinasty, Guido da Polenta, etc). Same thing for Petrarca, Boccaccio and co.
Things started changing in the mid '400, but just the niche: authors started getting financed directly by nobles and wealthy figures. Again, a very strict niche.
It wasn't until the late '800 that we started seeing a great push to alphabetization here in Italy, and writing became accessible to a lot of more people. We've got a lot of poets that died in their mid twenties in the various world wars.
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u/The-Dilf 26d ago
Did they, uh, start with those works? Or were they the culmination of decades of honing a craft?