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DANTE ALIGHIERI: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES
Have you ever spent long hours fantasizing some horrible
punishment for a person who has done something bad to you? The
torture must be perfect: painful, yet relating somehow to the
specific wrong the person has done you.
Carry that fantasy to another level. Imagine everyone, past
and present, good and bad, getting, finally, exactly what he or
she deserves.
Back in the early 1300s in Italy, a man carried through with
that fantasy--on paper, of course. He literally told everyone
where to go, Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven, and went on to design
specific punishments or rewards based on the life each person
led. He laid them all end to end and then made himself a
character (actually a not-too-bright lost soul) who walks the
entire length of the universe.
The work is called the Divine Comedy. The author is Dante
Alighieri.
Dante was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265. This would be
one of those meaningless, soon forgotten facts if it were not so
significant for the works Dante produced. It happened to be the
wrong place at the wrong time.
At the time of Dante's birth, Florence was a prosperous
city-state, full of greedy merchants, dedicated scholars, and
warring political factions. The two most influential families
in Florence were the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Guelphs
were supporters of the Pope and the Ghibellines supported the
German emperor, who claimed power in Italy. Shortly before
Dante was born, the Ghibellines were ousted from power, and the
Guelphs, with whom Dante's family was associated, took power.
Dante began his own political career in 1295 when the Guelphs
were firmly established and many of the Ghibellines were still
in exile. At that time, however, a split began in the Guelphs;
the two sides became known later as the Whites and the Blacks.
The crisis came to a head in 1300 when the Whites, who were in
power, decided to prosecute the Blacks who had gone to Rome to
ask the Pope to intervene on their behalf. (Remember, the
Guelphs had backed the Pope--he owed them a favor.) Dante was
one of the six White leaders responsible for this decision. In
1301, the next year, the Blacks staged a successful coup and the
White leaders, including Dante, were sent into exile. In 1302,
charged with graft, hostility against the Pope, and a long list
of other crimes, in his absence Dante was sentenced to death--if
