“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita…” begins the opening line of L’Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s three-part literary epic, La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy). It’s a line every Italian student can recite by memory, along with the concluding two lines, to wit: 

“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,

Mi trovai per una selva oscura,

che’ la diritta via era smarrita.” 

(In the middle of the journey of our life, 

I found myself in a dark forest, 

for the right way was lost.)

It is the 700th anniversary of the Florentine writer’s death (1321), the man who was to Italy and poetry what Shakespeare was to England and playwriting. In addition to his innovative style (terza rima, or third rhyme: an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme), Dante set aside classical Latin – heretofore the language of literary works – and wrote his poem in a more vernacular prose, which would become the “official” Italian language. Every region of Italy has its own musical lilt, of course, but Dante’s tongue became the unifying factor in forging a national one. He took readers on a journey through three levels of consciousness – Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise – and used his immense knowledge of world history to pepper each poem with everyone from Biblical figures to his contemporary Florentines. In short, Dante did with words what Italian Renaissance artists did with paint: He created a visual panorama, fueled by his own – and the readers’ – imaginations.

If alive today, Dante might be totally shocked by the “dark woods” of the modern world. What would Italy’s “supreme poet” have made of a global pandemic (COVID), civil wars in the Middle East and Africa or, just recently, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan? If he were re-writing Hell, he’d no doubt have room to add characters ranging from Chinese communists to Muslim terrorists. But it’s worth noting that this feisty and passionate writer, whose public pronouncements against local politicians during the infamous battles between “Guelphs” (pro-pope) and “Ghibellines” (pro-Holy Roman Emperor) had him banned forever from Florence, still managed to strike an ecstatic note with his final canticle, Paradiso. Human nature could be redeemed.

So far, Italy has done right by its most famous son. On March 25th, the government created “Dantedi,” a day specifically devoted to the poet. Still in the midst of COVID at the time, the nation yet inspired teachers to include Dante in their virtual lessons and encouraged average citizens to read the first stanzas of his poem out loud at their windows. Actor Roberto Benigni revived his previous celebration of La Divina Commedia and read selections at the Quirinal Palace in Rome. Artist Giuseppe Panone installed a slender, 22 meter high tree in Piazza Signoria in Florence, symbolizing the striving-toward-heaven trajectory of Dante’s narrative. And, also in Florence, the city’s leaders began construction of the nation’s first-ever museum specifically dedicated to the Italian language. It is being built in space connected to the famed Santa Maria Novella church, and is scheduled to open in 2024. Hail, Dante!

It is worth noting, though, that while Dante is celebrated for writing a masterpiece in a ‘common-man’ language, he still recognized the importance of Latin, the Mother Tongue. His first guide through Hell is Virgil, aka Publius Vergilius Maro, a classical poet from the Augustan Age. And, just as Italian school children study Dante, they also study Latin. Italy still remains one of the few places on Earth with a fair amount of fluent Latin speakers, though the average Italian’s grasp of the classical lingo is probably not as fluent as, say, the average Greek child’s is of classical Greek. Don’t blame it all on Italian laziness, however: Even the Vatican is rather giving up on Latin – it uses either English or Italian in its official documents. O tempora! O mores!  (“Oh the times, oh the customs!”)

Believe it or not, Dante still has a living relative: Serego Alighieri. He was interviewed by the media last March when a mock trial was held seeking to overturn Dante’s 1302 conviction of public corruption, which led to his being banished from Florence. (Note: Dante was on the losing side of the pope-versus-emperor war; he campaigned for the emperor, hoping a strong military leader would finally unite all of Italy. Some think the charges of corruption were politically motivated: i.e, to the victors belong the punishments.) But Dante’s 21st Century ancestor wasn’t very sympathetic: “He never returned to Florence. Anything done for him today will not change any of that.”

True: Although Dante does have a tomb in the Church of Santa Croce, it remains empty. The Supreme Poet spent the rest of his life wandering about, much like the protagonist of his poem – first to Verona, then to Ravenna, which is where he died in 1321, and where his tomb and a small museum are located. The city of Ravenna refuses to give him up. Yet, each year, like a loved one still pining for his or her lost beloved, the city of Florence sends oil from the hills of Tuscany to light the lamps which illuminate his mausoleum. A huge statue of Dante still looms over the piazza Santa Croce, as if scanning the horizon to spot his actual tomb on the other side of Italy. But, no matter where he’s buried, Dante’s spirit lives on in his work, a masterpiece which Pope Francis said earlier this year “is an integral part of (Italian) culture, and takes us back to the Christian roots of Europe and the West…It embodies that patrimony of ideals and values which the Church and civil society continue to propose as the basis of a humane social order.” -BDC