Dante exile

Here’s a secret about Dante’s Commedia: half the people he torments in Hell or praises in Paradise are there because of a political war most English readers have never heard of. Understanding Guelphs versus Ghibellines unlocks dozens of passages that otherwise feel baffling. This wasn’t ancient history to Dante—it was his life. It destroyed his … Read more

If you want to understand the Divine Comedy, you need to understand Florentine politics in the late thirteenth century. Not because the poem is political propaganda — it is far more than that — but because Dante’s exile drove him to write the Commedia, and that exile was the direct consequence of a factional defeat … Read more