I am slowly reading through Inferno in the Penguin Kirkpatrick version which give the Italian text in parallel with the English translation. I know enough Italian to order a pizza and know which words in Dante correspond to the translation, but not enough to feel how different the grammar and the language are from modern Italian.
I can read Chaucer, but I'm aware that it is not modern English. Because I don't really know modern Italian, I am not aware that Dante isn't modern, but clearly he isn't.
Does a modern Italian reader find Dante's language as archaic as a modern English reader finds Chaucer?