Siena Stories

Everything is coming to life now it's well into spring and the temperatures have been above normal. My acacia and apple trees are buzzing with bees. Enso, one of my neighbours, apart form being a carpenter , plumber, builder is also a bee keeper and told me he had found another swarm and he asked me whether I wanted to come along and see how he collects the swarm and encourages them including the queen bee into the hive. It was absolutely mesmerizing, watching him carefully climb the ladder into the olive tree , abstract  the branch with the swarming nest from the tree and nudge all the bees into the wooden box hive with one tap of the branch. My protective jacket and hood worked almost perfectly, though not getting stung it was pretty impossible to get a good focus on what was going on. 

The swallows are nesting in the barn next to the mill. They swoop in and out of the tiny windows judging their distances perfectly. They also come down to the orto when the tiny flies are up excited by all the digging and swoop in to feed on them while Tilly and I look on fascinated. The nightingales have arrived and sing to me while I work in the orto during the day. They have to also sing through the night to get themselves heard by their mates. The woodpeckers are laughing in the woods, the bee catchers are chirping high in the sky and the frogs are croaking away down in the ditches.  I love April, there is so much to see and hear and enjoy.

In the orto things are finally picking up after weeks of sunshine and warm weather. We have rows of runner beans so nearly ready, at about 90 degrees to the stem and drooping and rows of large spring onions which I have never grown through the winter. The summer onion seedlings are in and I'm planning the areas for the runner beans, spinach, more peas and some parsley. Everyone else seems to be getting ahead of me. I've watched how Teresa leans her onions to one side while planting them so the leaves don't get damaged trying to stay upright while they are so little. She chops the very ends of the leaves of as well so they don't weigh the plant down. She has even put tomatoes in and yesterday it rained torrents and now I'll have to wait a few days while the moon gets on with waning and the rain sinks in to do any more.

Lilliano , one of the farm workers asked to borrow my hoe which I had to sharpen for him with my disc fgrinder. He was impressed with the broad beans and the garlic coming up but told me to dig the onions out and eat them , those that have a flower head growing as they won't grow any bigger in the ground now. I'm also hoping the garlic that hasn't come up yet isn't rotting. The peas are showing but who knows if all of them will come up, I have some peas soaking for a couple of days as Giuliano told me to do, ready for the gaps.  So you see I am extremely busy listening to all this advice and getting it all done!

One of those lovely warm afternoons we went  to photograph some abandoned farmhouses near Rapolano. As we stood there enjoying the sunlight on the grass and cow parsley, a beautiful and very friendly fox came up to us and circled us a few times , I imagined to see if we had any food to offer her. Someone may have been giving her food and now she thinks we are all nice decent creatures. It's hard to know whether it's the right thing to do, feed the wildlife, but I feel if someone is able to keep up that care and feeding daily, then it is alright. We're messing things up for so many creatures on this planet, we really do have to learn to set so much right again. Encouraging others at least to see and appreciate these smaller more vulnerable things is a start.

Jacqueline Tune,

Slightly after the fact, but I thought I’d call the attention of non-Italian friends to an important holiday celebrated here each year on April 25 — the day designated to commemorate the overthrow of the Fascist-Nazi regime in the spring of 1945.  

Growing up in Massachusetts, I inevitably viewed World War II as something that happened “over there,” though countless American lives were affected as well. My father, while still a teenager, served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Ocean Theater. All the same, it was not a war fought on North American soil.  That makes a big difference.

In Italy, war memories remain fresh in people’s minds. Come to a town like Chiusure in the Crete Senesi — where many residents are, as they say, “of a certain age” — and there’s no end to the stories you’ll hear. Relatives killed. Villagers hiding for days when the Front passed through town as Nazi troops were pushed back north by the advancing Allies. Food and livestock confiscated.  Bloody scores settled between Partisans and Fascists even after the official end of hostilities.  Hardship and hunger in post-war years. The subsequent birth of the Italian Republic in light of the referendum of June 2, 1946 — when women, too, voted for the first time and all citizens together decided the new shape of their country.

April 25 also marks the culmination of the annual three-day Artichoke Festival in Chiusure. Thousands of visitors come to this town, which usually is home to about 95 souls. The food is outstanding — this small corner of Italy boasts its own variety of artichoke, praiseworthy not only for its taste but also for its especially healthful qualities. The final day — April 25 — is a blast. Artichoke soup, artichoke pasta, fried artichokes, local pecorino cheese, tons of other yummies, great local wine. And music! Nothing can match the sound of a band playing live in the piazza, especially when the band is the beloved Società Filarmonica Giuseppe Verdi from the nearby town of Asciano.

A few photos of the musicians and majorettes.

And why not?  A little video, too.

One final shot.  Years ago, this entryway to Chiusure was known for the beautiful arch connecting the houses from one side of the street to the other.  A column of Nazi tanks, retreating northward to their homeland, could not fit through. Without hesitation they opened fire, blasting the road wider.  

The majorettes and musicians from Asciano are far more welcome travelers in the place where the arch used to be.

Jeff Shapiro,

Most people come to Italy fascinated by the art of the past. But how many know contemporary Italian art? Street Art, for example. Who knows that Keith Haring left one of his last works, Tuttomondo, in Pisa, Tuscany?

Today in many Italian cities, ranging from the South to the North, the walls and buildings of neglected districts find new life and colors thanks to street artists.

It’s a risky job, between legal and illegal. Many artists adopt nicknames and mainly work in the night, where nobody can see them. Just in a few cases municipal institutions have given funding for the creation of murals.

One of the cities where street artists have been quite active is Bologna. Here, until few weeks ago,  you could see the original works of artists such as Blu and Ericalcaine - a fascinating mixture of realism and hallucination.

What happened then? The brand new exhibition  “Street Art” opened in March in Bologna's Palazzo Pepoli, sparking a massive debate and international outcry. Some works of street art and parts of murals were taken from the streets (apparently without the artists’ agreement) for an event, to which visitors were charged an entrance ticket fee. If street art is a form of public art – it is free and for everybody- how you can constrain it in a closed space, and aim to make profit from it?

The reaction of Blu was extreme:  as a form of protest against the city, he destroyed all his murals in Bologna. I can understand him, but I find it really sad. Blu has very clear ideas about his role in society – he's been a squatter and he does not like the commercial art system. He often moves to work in different locations and I am sure he will continue to spread his colors somewhere else.  But somehow this action of white-washing his murals in Bologna seemed like an artistic “suicide”, that finally results in less public art in Bologna.

I leave you with more questions. Where is the border between vandalism and an expression of art? Who is the real owner of the painted wall- the artist, the city, the owner of the building? It is ethically correct to museumize  every form of art? It is possible to give public support to street art without losing its identity?

For some more coverage of the controversial exhibit in Bologna and Blu's response, check out these other online posts:

Hyperallergic: Street artist blu destroys 20 years of his work in Bologna to protest an exhibition

BritalyPost: An exhibition of street artist Banksy in Bologna triggers controversies

WuMingFoundation: Street artist #Blu is erasing all the murals he painted in #Bologna

Marzia Minore,

Tuscany is in bloom, with wild flowers popping up everywhere!

Have you heard about the Italian word "petaloso", and adjective meaning "full of petals"?  You might have seen the news about this brand-new Italian word that was invented by an 8-year-old boy named Matteo from the Province of Ferrara. Matteo's word "petaloso" was officially approved as a new addition to the Italian vocabulary earlier this year by the Accademia della Crusca, the foremost research institution on Italian language, and the oldest linguistic academy in the world!

Some news postings about the approval of the new word "petaloso":

Il piccolo Matteo inventa la parola Petaloso, l’Accademia della Crusca risponde

Il marchio “petaloso” è già stato registrato, ma non si sa da chi

Petaloso: tutti pazzi per la parola inventata da Matteo

Here are some recent snapshots I took in mid-April of some "fiori petalosi" (petal-filled flowers) in the Chianti region, just north of Siena:

Lisa Nonken,

You can’t resist Road trippin’ through Tuscany in general and the South of Tuscany in particular. An enchanted past has survived throughout the centuries. Modernity exists in the shell of a world that was and still is there, at least in part. It irresistibly drags you back into the groove of history, overwhelms you with the sense of your “now” as a moment of a streaming “forever”, you as a brick in the big wall of human civilization. It charges you with responsibilities…

“Okay Roberto, calm down! You went for a day trip to Massa Marittina…That’is it, right?”.

Yyyes, okay, let’s take a look at this beautiful village, close to the Tirrenian sea.

Climbing the medieval alley to the Sienese fortress, which is in the middle between the oldest part of the town on the slope to the sea, and the newest (14th century!) on the flat top of the hill to the east.

Beautiful! The fortress and the connecting arch to an older defensive tower.

“A scholar with a view”. From the top of the fortress, you can see the cathedral and, on the horizon, the sea!

Massa was in the middle of a very important mining site. It is the place where the first mining code of the world was written in the thirteenth century! It is at the edge of the Metal hills and connects this region with the Maremma, a formerly “sea-like” area, full of lakes and swamps (Maremma is the transformation of “maretima”, “a land similar to the sea”). A big lake was right underneath Massa! Now drained, as the swamps.

The beautiful cathedral, full of art!

Its fantastic small museum with a “Majesty” by Ambrogio Lorenzetti that had been cut into five parts used as shelves to separate stored coal!!! But now it’s back!

And these are fantastic relieves from the 12th-13th century!!! Made of grey alabaster; at some point they were covered with lard, to give them a shiny outlook. Later they were hidden under a baroque altar and were not in contact with the atmosphere for a few centuries. This is the incredible result!

The subject is The massacre of the innocents! Primitive and intense at the highest level.

My highly intellectual scholarly attitude should prevent me from talking about the pleasures of food, but I must confess that I also had a great lunch with homemade tortellini and delicious pork.

At the end of the day, I came back to “modernity” in Siena!

Is Tuscany real? Can one live somewhere else? Just in few other places.

Roberto Fineschi,

There are so many  beautiful villas in the Tuscan countryside, but today I want to let you know  a special one: La Foce.

I casually discovered this place through a book written by an old schoolfriend. When I visited it, last autumn, I realized that many people in Siena do not ever know it.

Indeed, the history of La Foce is fascinating. It’s about a land and a woman.

The land is the Val d’Orcia, in the southern province of Siena. With its hills pointed with cypresses, it is now an universal symbol of beauty and a UNESCO site. Could you imagine that a century ago the Val d’Orcia was arid, poor and abandoned? Strange, but true.

The woman is Iris Origo: an Anglo-American aristocrat brought up in Florence in an international environment. Iris married  an Italian man, Antonio and in 1924 they bought a large estate in Val d’Orcia, including a 15th century building which became their home. It was a great challenge, as at the time no one could appreciate such a place. Cecil Pinsent, an architect inspired by Italian Gothic and Renaissance painting, designed the gardens. They are a masterpiece combining Italian and English tradition.

Gradually Iris and Antonio transformed the inhospitable land of Val d’Orcia in a farmed countryside, bringing work and social benefits to the inhabitants.  They dedicated their life to this aim. The cypresses rows, so deeply associated to this landscape, were created at that time.

The second, and not less moving, part of the history started with the 2nd World War when Iris, with the risk of her life, chose to support the Resistance against the Nazi-Fascism. She supported the “partigiani” and welcomed in her house many  displaced children who grew together with her own sons and daughters.

This incredible woman  was also an historian and a writer. You can read about the hard years of the war in her diary, “War in Val D’Orcia".

Walking in the wonderful gardens of La Foce is a unique experience, and I imagine in the spring they give their best. Lemon trees in terracotta pots, lavender hedges, geometrical  terraces, cherry trees, pines and cypresses, and the smell of thyme and rosemary.

On the background, the spectacular view of the valley of the Orcia and of the Amiata mountain.

What impressed me in all the history is that Iris had such relevant economic resources that she could do whatever she wanted; but she chose a neglected place and succeeded in transforming it in a paradise. She chose to risk and she chose to help people.

Standing in the absolute peace of the green Tuscan hills, La Foce appears a sort of utopia, where men and nature meet harmoniously, and  beauty is not separated from an active role in the history.

For more info, here’s La Foce’s Website.

Marzia Minore,

Yes, it’s here.  Time once again to walk through the woods with my wife Valeria and hunt for wild asparagus.  

Before moving to Tuscany—or before getting to know Valeria, for that matter—I never dreamed of engaging in such a beautiful springtime activity.  Maybe I had never really appreciated Spring.  Primavera in Italy demands to be savored.  It excites the senses, puts you through a yearly rebirthing process replete with nameless pangs and yearnings.  

I can’t resist sharing the sounds of Primavera as experienced by artistic Italian observers.  

First, Francesco Landini, the blind organist from Florence, who became one of Italy’s most influential composers during the second half of the 1300s.  Old music, but the libidinous energy of “Ecco la primavera” has lost none of its bite.

The text of this 14th-century ballad:

Ecco la Primavera che 'l cor fa rallegrare.

Temp'è d'innamorare e star con lieta cera.

Noi veggiam l'aria e 'l tempo che pur chiam' allegrezza.

In questo vago tempo ogni cosa ha vaghezza.

L'erbe con gran freschezza e fior copron i prati

e gli alberi adornati sono in simil manera.

Ecco la Primavera che 'l cor fa rallegrare.

A very rough translation:

Here is the Spring, which cheers the heart.

Time to fall in love and put on a merry face.

We see how even the air and the weather call us to joyfulness.

In this lovely time each thing shows its beauty.

The greenery is fresh, and flowers cover the meadow

And the trees likewise are adorned with blossoms.

Spring is here, which cheers the heart.

Okay, one more favorite.  It starts with a poem by Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch. Talk about a romantic spirit!  On April 6, 1327, this twenty-two-year-old Tuscan went to a Mass in Avignon, France.  There, in the Church of Sainte-Claire, he saw and fell forever in love with Laura de Noves, who, though only seventeen, had already been married for two years.  I don’t think Petrarca ever shared so much as a warm handshake with his Laura.  Still, she remained his muse and unobtainable object of desire for the rest of his life, inspiring most of the 366 poems making up his Canzoniere, or “Song Book.”  

A gorgeous work from that collection is “Zefiro torna, e ‘l bel tempo rimena.” The first part praises the wonders of Spring, heralded by the return of Zephyr, the gentle yet soul-stirring West Wind.  The world rejoices, but Petrarca suffers the ache of a love destined to remain eternally unrequited.  News of his muse’s death having reached him, the poet finds himself alone in a world devoid now of loveliness.  

The original text in Italian:

Zefiro torna, e 'l bel tempo rimena,

e i fiori et l'erbe, sua dolce famiglia,

et garrir Progne et pianger Philomena,

et primavera candida et vermiglia.

Ridono i prati, e 'l ciel si rasserena;

Giove s'allegra di mirar sua figlia;

l'aria et l'acqua et la terra è d'amor piena;

ogni animal d'amar si riconsiglia.

Ma per me, lasso, tornano i piú gravi

sospiri, che del cor profondo tragge

quella ch'al ciel se ne portò le chiavi;

et cantar augelletti, et fiorir piagge,

e 'n belle donne honeste atti soavi

sono un deserto, et fere aspre et selvagge.

A translation in English (not my own):

Zephyr returns and brings fair weather,

and the flowers and herbs, his sweet family,

and Procne singing and Philomela weeping,

and the white springtime, and the vermilion.

The meadows smile, and the skies grow clear:

Jupiter is joyful, gazing at his daughter:

the air and earth and water are filled with love:

every animal is reconciled to loving.

But to me, alas, there return the heaviest

sighs that she draws from the deepest heart,

who took the keys of it away to heaven:

and the song of little birds, and the flowering fields,

and the sweet, virtuous actions of women

are a wasteland to me, of bitter and savage creatures.

As so often happens in Italy, a masterpiece in one form of art spawns the creation of new treasures in other mediums.  No wonder, then, that two and a half centuries after Petrarca wrote the poem, the great composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) set it to music in this amazing madrigal:

Spring is here.  Come, Valeria.  Lead me into the woods.

Jeff Shapiro,

From March 19 to July 24 Palazzo Strozzi – in Florence – hosts a great exhibition entitled “From Kandinsky to Pollock. The art of the Guggenheim collections”.

I’ve always been attracted by the so defined “Modern Art”, in all its expressions and art movements . It seems to me that some of these works can talk to me, and this happens with modern art paintings much more than with paintings from other art periods. Colors and shapes have this power of transmitting feelings and emotions.

The exhibition is a result of part of the collections of both Solomon Guggenheim and his niece Peggy, two extremely important figures of the XX Century, two passionate about Modern Art, two great collectors that helped the avant-garde to spread out in Europe and in the United States.

In the first spaces we find works that represent the beginning of the two collections, the one by Solomon – focused on the abstract, started in 1929 – and the one by Peggy – where she collected works of the many avant-garde movements, started in the Thirties. In particular, we can admire the Dominant Curve by Kandinsky (1936), the painting used in the publications of the exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi.

When the Second World War started, many European artists – also thanks to the help that Peggy gave them – emigrated in the USA. This emigration lead to an exchange, created the possibility of an influence between European and American art that brought to the birth of the American avant-garde, in particular to the post-World War II American art movement called “Abstract Expressionism”. At this point, one entire room is dedicated to Jackson Pollock, as one of the main American artist during that period.

Sam Francis, Shining Back, 1958

Hans Hofmann, The gate, 1959-1960

The exhibition now leads us from the period in between the Fifties and the Sixties – with the sunset of the “Abstract Expressionism” and the rise of an American painting style characterized by clear shapes and flat colors – to the beginning of the Sixties.

Kenneth Noland, Birth, 1961

Morris Louis, #48, detail, 1962

After letting us perceive the spirit of a Century through its artists, the exhibition has its end with Preparedness by Roy Lichtenstein (1968), a painting that interrupts the artistic path that we covered since the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the XX Century, and that starts a new art movement, the “Pop Art”, along with a new era, the “Contemporary Art”.

Chiara Ricchi,

Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait, 1556, Lancut Museum, Poland.

Sofonisba Anguissola is a rare example of a woman who led a successful career as a painter during the late Italian Renaissance. 

She was born around 1532 in Lombardy to a noble but relatively poor family. The eldest of 7 (six daughters and one brother) her family provided her and her siblings with a good education, including the opportunity for artistic instruction. Her talent in drawing and painting became readily apparent and the opportunity to work alongside local artists allowed her to further expand her skills, blazing a trail for other aspiring female artists to come!

Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait, 1554

Sofonisba Anguissola's work was admired by the likes of Michelangelo, who apparently exchanged sketches with the young artist and offered her encouragement (quite a boost for any aspiring artist!).

Giorgio Vasari wrote about Sofonisba Anguissola in his "Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects" that she 

“has laboured at the difficulties of design with greater study and better grace than any other woman of our time, and she has not only succeeded in drawing, colouring, and copying from nature, and in making excellent copies of works by other hands, but has also executed by herself alone some very choice and beautiful works of painting.”

Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola, c. late 1550s, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena

In her 20's Sofonisba Anguissola painted the remarkable double-portrait which is now held in Siena's Pinacoteca museum in the Spannocchi Collection. The painting depicts the artist herself being painted by her tutor Bernardino Campi. It is a fascinating work, especially in the context of the art historical discussion of the "male gaze" and "female gaze". In the remarkably rare position of a female artist, Anguissola depicts herself in this painting as seen through the eyes of her tutor. Sofonisba Anguissola eventually became an official portraitist of the Spanish royal family, being made made lady-in-waiting to serve as art tutor to the queen Elizabeth of Valois, with whom she developed a friendship over the years.

Portraits by Sofonisba Anguissola of her patrons King Philip II of Spain and his third wife Queen Elizabeth of Valois

Sofonisba Anguissola's residency in the Spanish court lasted more than a decade, and when the queen died from childbirth in 1568 Sofonisba Anguissola found herself in the unusual position for her time of being unmarried and already in her mid 30's.

Thankfully the King Philip II wanted to make sure that she could continue her career, and helped to arrange an aristocratic marriage for her in 1571 to Fabrizio Moncada Pignatelli, son of the Prince of Paterno, Viceroy of Sicily. After her marriage she continued to receive a royal stipend and was able to continue her work as a painter and tutor to younger artists.

Following her husband's death in 1579, in her late 40s, Sofonisba Anguissola fell in love with and married (apparently against her brother's wishes!) a wealthy sea merchant whom she met when traveling on his ship. It was by all accounts a very happy marriage and her second husband was also very supportive of her artistic career.

Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait, 1610

Sofonisba Anguissola never had any children but seemed to have been very close with her relatives and also was an influential mentor to many aspiring artists until finally passing away in her 90's!

In 1624, the year before she died, she was paid a visit by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck, a young man at the time, who made sketches and painted a portrait of the remarkable elderly woman. Van Dyck wrote about meeting Sofonisba Anguissola that "her eyesight was weakened," but was she still quite sharp-witted!

Anthony Van Dyck portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola, 1624

Today the paintings of Sofonisba Anguissola can be found in museums around the world, including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston the Museo del Prado in Spain the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and of course the Pinacoteca Museum right here in Siena!

The National Gallery of Women Artists in DC writes:

"Despite her artistic success during her lifetime, Anguissola’s fame slowly disappeared towards the eighteenth century with many of her works being ascribed to male artists. Scant scholarly attention existed about the artist until the 1970s, when historians and feminists began to spotlight the artist for her landmark achievement of opening up painting to women as a socially acceptable profession. Anguissola managed to remain in close touch with Italian artistic innovations over her seven decade career, following artistic trends as she moved from Cremona to Madrid, Sicily, Genoa, and finally Palermo. Financially independent, internationally recognized for her talent, and respected for her creativity and intelligence, Anguissola was a true Renaissance woman."

I couldn't say it better myself!

For more reading: http://www.gardnermuseum.org/collection/browse?filter=artist:3155 http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sofonisba-Anguissola http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=116 http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sofonisba_Anguissola

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/case1339555478/inline http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2863112.pdf?acceptTC=true&coverpage=false&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Lisa Nonken

Today I'd like to celebrate Dario Fo, in my opinion Italy's greatest actor, play-writer, theatre director, comedian, singer, painter and political campaigner. Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997.

Today, he celebrates his 90th birthday.

I can't stop laughing if I think about all his performances I have seen, both in theatres and on television.

As a student of Italian, you MUST see him performing in Grammelot, a kind of odd, fake, funny language that anybody, speaking any language, could understand. Grammelot is a style of language used by the Commedia dell'Arte, with onomatopoeic  elements used in association with mime and mimicry.  This theatrical style reflects centuries of European culture (and not only).

As a modern jester, Fo re-introduced Grammelot in the theatre as a universal language. There is an American version too!

His shows are a masterpiece of storytelling. On stage – with his beloved wife, the actress Franca Rame, who died last year – he would tell intriguing stories, with a profoundly deep sense of humanity.

I am also grateful to him for all I learned from his writings, and his political engagement for civil rights and social justice.

I had the chance to meet him once early in the morning in Milan on a busy bus like a any other commuter.  Dining with him and his wife later that day, he was the one who asked questions and listened carefully to other people.

At 90 years-old, he is still a great actor, with the same vibrant, funny voice.

Daniela Passeri,

For Italians, the name Dante is heard as often as Shakespeare is for English speakers. He is a literary giant. A revolutionary in language. A poet of nearly unmatched, extraordinary genius that we mere mortals can only attempt to comprehend.

I first encountered Dante in my English class sophomore year of high school. The class was about the great epics—we read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Dante’s Inferno. Out of all of them, I found Inferno to be the most ambitious, imaginative, and, in my opinion, the most eloquently written. (Even taking into account that I was reading an English translation, which can’t begin to capture the beauty of the original Italian).

To understand what this work was, we need to know who Dante Alighieri was and his history leading up to it. He was born in 1265 in Florence, during a period of intense political tension between two factions: the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The former supported the Holy Roman Emperor, while the latter supported the pope. Florence was a Guelf city, and Dante, an active member in the party. By 1300, the Florentine Guelfs divided into White Guelfs and Black Guelfs. The Whites, which Dante was a part of, were opposed to more papal influence, specifically that of Pope Boniface VIII. The Blacks continued to support the pope.

Dante’s political affiliation ended up being his downfall—yet, at the same time, beneficial to the literary world. By the time of the split in the Guelf party, Dante had achieved prominence as a politician in Florence. He was married, had children, and was well recognized as a poet thanks to his work La Vita Nuova. When the Black Guelfs took power in Florence, Dante was exiled. He roamed around Italian courts, but he never returned to Florence. He doesn’t mention his family in his works, but there is doubt that he ever saw his wife again, though his sons and daughter possibly joined him at some point.

While in exile, he continued writing, producing an “intellectual feast” of political and philosophical musings called Il Convivio, which never gained popularity. Then, around 1308, Dante began the work for which he is best known seven hundred years later: the Commedia. (Divina wasn’t added until the 16th century.) It depicts Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven after he “lost the true way,” and is divided into three installments: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

The Commedia could be said to be a form of consolation for Dante during his difficult years in exile. In it, he condemns those who are responsible for his current state, dreams of a future in which the world is governed under a single monarch—his idea of perfect harmony—and in which he meets and is guided by those most important and influential to him, including the Ancient Roman poet Virgil, Beatrice, and Cacciaguida.

Beatrice and Cacciaguida are both important in understanding Dante’s other motivations for the Commedia, aside from politics. Beatrice was his ultimate muse. He says to have first met her at the age of nine in this church in Florence:

They only had a few meetings before Beatrice died young—possibly from childbirth—but she was a great source of Dante’s admiration and love, and one of the primary inspirations behind his early poetry in La Vita Nuova. She plays an active role in Paradiso, where she guides Dante through the heavenly spheres. Cacciaguida was an ancestor of Dante’s, a crusader; and though he only appears once in Paradiso, his importance is well established. Dante found consolation from thinking of his ancestry, particularly this heroic figure. However, this reminded him just how unjustly he’d been treated, and backfired on his writing. As Barbara Reynolds points out in her biography on Dante, his anger at those who condemned him threatened to shake the carefully constructed poetry that he otherwise had astounding control upon. At one point, she describes his rage at Boniface as a “monomania.”

The Commedia is an impressive work that took at least ten years to complete, and was finished just before Dante’s death. He takes examples from medieval art for the creation of his Inferno, including Giotto’s Last Judgment in the Scrovegni Chapel, and the depiction of the devil in Florence’s baptistery, which Dante saw as a young boy.

His journey through Hell is similar to a story of St. Paul’s journey, and that of Aeneas’s in the Underworld. Yet Dante crafts this in a completely unique way, combining pieces from ancient mythology and Christianity, all wrapped together in the beautiful rhyme scheme he created: terza rima (which follows an ABA / BCB format).

There is a reason Dante has survived for so many generations. There is a reason his poetry lives on and is studied today even by sixteen-year-olds in Kansas. We owe much of his legacy to Boccaccio, who, after his death, began a series of lectures in Florence on Dante’s work and ensured the Commedia’s survival. But we owe even more to the human imagination, to the innate fascination with the fantastical and the awe of genius. This is the reason the Commedia and the sources it drew on first came about, and this is the reason it lives on today. Humanity thrives on the power of the arts and of love—the only stronger feeling for Dante than hate—“that moves the sun and the other stars.”

Sources:

Quinones, Ricardo J. "Dante." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Oct. 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

Reynolds, Barbara. Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, an Imprint of Avalon Pub. Group, 2006. Print.

Image of the dark wood at the beginning of Inferno (by Gustave Doré, 1861): http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_dore.html

Image of devil in Florence baptistery (by Coppo di Marcovaldo, 1225): http://www.worldofdante.org/pop_up_query.php?dbid=I470&show=more

Alex Wendt,

Liberal Arts Student

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