Yes, Brunetto Latini was Dante's teacher and friend. Dante meets him in Canto XV, the seventh circle of hell:
But I remember'd him; and toward his face
My hand inclining, answer'd: "Ser Brunetto!
And are ye here?" He thus to me: "My son!
Oh let it not displease thee, if Brunetto
Latini but a little space with thee
Turn back, and leave his fellows to proceed."
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The rest of the canto is occupied by tender conversation between the two men.
And in Canto XVI, Dante is accosted by three noble sodomites (Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, and Jacopo Rusticucci), who recognized Dante as their fellow Florentine, "some inmate of our evil land." After hearing their stories, Dante is seized by a sudden desire to embrace them.
If from the fire
I had been shelter'd, down amidst them straight
I then had cast me; nor my guide, I deem,
Would have restrain'd my going: but that fear
Of the dire burning vanquish'd the desire,
Which made me eager of their wish'd embrace.
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Then, the three Florentine sodomites and Dante together lament the decline of Florence.
"So may long space thy
spirit guide thy limbs," He answer straight return'd; "and so thy fame
Shine bright when thou art gone, as thou shalt tell,
If courtesy and valor, as they wont,
Dwell in our city, or have vanish'd clean:
For one amidst us late condemn'd to wail,
Borsiere, yonder walking with his peers,
Grieves us no little by the news he brings."
"An upstart multitude and sudden gains,
Pride and excess, O Florence! have in thee
Engender'd, so that now in tears thou mourn'st!"
Thus cried I, with my face upraised, and they
All three, who for an answer took my words,
Look'd at each other, as men look when truth
Comes to their ear.
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Evidently, Dante found the sodomites sexually seductive and politically sympatico. -- Yoshie