Dante Alighieri Legacy

Dante Alighieri - The Man and the Divine Comedy

Onorate l'altissimo poeta; L'ombra sua torna, ch'era dipartita -

“Honor the Prince of Poets; the soul and glory that went from us returns (Inferno, Canto IV)

Dante Alighieri. The Italian poet, philosopher, and master. He is defined, like all men and women before and after, by his name, his identity, and his legacy. His name and his work was the light that truly signaled the end of the Dark Ages, and the light that illuminated the dawn of the European Renaissance. His identity is to be the mind behind the greatest poetic work of the Middle Ages, and to be the owner of the hand that wrote one of the great masterpieces of literature of Western culture. His legacy is to be considered one of the best poets to ever live, and the author of The Divine Comedy. Yet what made him? What inspired him? How could such a humble Florentine boy grow up to be one of the most renowned and revered writers ever? We look at his life in detail, with what little we have, and we ask what truly sparked the flame that came to be the Divine Comedy. We look at his life as a flame, building up to the inferno of the Divine Comedy. Dante’s life was filled with various elements that allowed for him to write his, and humanity’s, crown jewel. His experiences and influences in life are reflected in his works, through his words and his thoughts. Dante’s creations are the stories of his life and of the society that surrounded him: of a predominantly Christian society, with a fledgling Renaissance movement. His work expresses the past, the present, and the future; exhibiting classic Latin, Christian, and Renaissance themes. Yet separately and jointly, the more general, human element of his works is a gift. The gift Dant...

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...nte’s death, Florence made repeated requests to Ravenna for the return of Dante’s remains, as Florence’s native son. Yet the city of Ravenna refused, by reasoning that it was she, not Florence, who had housed and fed the great poet in his days of need. The guardians of Dante’s body in Ravenna remain fiercely protective of the great poet, once going so far as to hide his bones in a false wall of the monastery. Nonetheless, in 1829, a tomb was built for Dante in the Basilica di Santa Croce, the Basilica of the Holy Cross, in Florence. The tomb, empty since its inception, has an engraving on the front from Dante’s Inferno that reads: Onorate l'altissimo poeta – which translates, roughly, to “Honor the Prince of Poets.” The subsequent line remains markedly absent from the gravestone – L'ombra sua torna, ch'era dipartita – “the soul and glory that went from us returns.”