Dante and his time - III

It should take too long to show, through the past centuries, how it came to be, at Dante’s time, the balance of powers. As matter of fact Dante found a world that was dying, an ancient order perishing, that had his roots craved in the crush of the roman empire and in the rise of the Germans power, which took place at the same time all along the last height centuries before his birth. In the time after the crush of roman empire, which historians date at 453 A.D., we can see haw the rude and uncivilized Germans get captured by the past  roman greatness, whose remnants they could find in the Papacy. It was the Papacy indeed which inherited, though transforming it a religious form, the power lost by the Romans, in terms of civilization, culture, language, customs and juridical organization. We could say with Horace’s verses, changing the subject,  “Roma capta ferum victorem cepit”.

And this world of distribution of the powers between the Church and the Empire was ending at long.

But Dante sight was able to go very farther than all his contemporaries.

Dante’s political ideal was instead that the Pope had to have the spiritual power while the monarchy in all temporal questions. Exactly what hat to be realized after centuries from his death.

That’s why I can’t agree on what writes A.N. Wilson in his recent book “Dante in love”, where he accuses  Dante of being incoherent and instable of mind and thought till madness.

And I’m very curious instead of reading what Angelo Ruggeri writes on his answering book of Wilson’s evidence on Dante’s life and his time.

The Italian writer warns not to mistaken on confusing the Guelfs Dante belonged (actually partisans of the autonomy of the Communes against both Pope and Emperor, so said With Guelfs) with the Black Gulefs, whe exiled him for his life, being in favour of the Pope against the Emperor.

… to be continued…

Dante and his time - II

 

Dante is the founder of a new way to see and to write about love; he shares this role of founder of  this new literary current, called “the sweet new style” (dolce stilnovo) with Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia.

Dante lives in a period which sees the end of an world: the balance between the Papacy and the Empire is at his end.

When Charles the Valois enters in Florence, in 1301, at the head of the Black Guelphs, Dante (belonging to the White Faction of the same Guelph party, traditional enemy of the imperialist Ghibeline’s party) is condemned and exiled; he never will see its town again.

The White Faction were neither for the Emperor nor for the Pope; they were just for the total autonomy of the Communes from both the institutions headed by the Germans and by the Roman Church.

If we don’t keep in mind this fundamental detail, we risk to  make the same mistake has committed A.N. Wilson in his last book we have already reviewed in this blog (but  you can find more complete reviews on line: especially by the main news papers: the Indipendent, the Observer, the Telegraph, The Guardian etc) defining the great Italian poet, incoherent and even political instable till madness.

As acutely has pointed out a well founded Italian writer, Angelo Ruggeri (who, by the way, is writing an exhaustive answer to the Wilson’s Dante in love) it must be observed that Dante, in his last 20 years of his life, was an exiled man, sued by the Roman Inquisitors as heretic, with great risks, not only  for his liberty, but also for his life.

That’s the main reason, according to Angelo Ruggeri’s theory, why Dante made alliances with Ghibelines, in order to be protected, better than with the same Guelph’s partisans (which black’s fraction, by the way, was responsible of his political and personal disgrace).

… to be continued…

 

Dante and his time

Since 1800, a book a year has been edited, only in  English language, on Dante's masterpiece "The Divine Comedy",  which shows the great interest English culture has reserved to the "Supreme Italian Poet".

Is not a case that Dante Alighieri is enumerated between the six best poets of any time in the mondial literature.

Recently one more book has been published on the matter: Dante in love by A.N. Wilson.

Despite his title, it's not a book neither on Gemma Donati's love affairs, nor on Beatrice's. His right title could have been "Dante and his time", 'cause it's reckoned by his same author that the book deals with the social and political life in Florence during the poet's life (1265-1321).

May be that's the main reason why the book has had conflictual and opposite reviews by English critic and reviers.

As matter of fact while the Telegraph (both Daily and Sunday's) and the Times have expressed good opinions on the last Wilson's work, other papers, like The Observer and The Guardian show perplexities and douts on the reaching of his purposes and objectives by the book.

In Italy Angelo Ruggeri, a well known writer, very fond on classical studies, is working on Dante in love book's review.

Angelo Ruggeri believes that Wilson's Dante in love is well documented and solidly founded (as English, he affirms, have a great tradition on Dante's studies). He therefore underlines, according to Wilson's convictions,  the contradictions between  Dante's theories and his life, mostly because the Poet, while beloging to the Guelf's Party (thus being loyal to the roman Pope), nevertheless he vowed and wished the coming of an Universalistic  Empire (under the German power) able to gather and include old the states and all the world since then known.

He shares Wilson's statements quoting his book at page 118:

“His treatise written in exile, when he had changed his mind about being a papalist Guelf and became an ardente supporter of a universal monarchy, would strike many modern readers as bizarre and the open letters he wrote to the Emperor Henry VII would strike most dispassionate readers as deranged”.

Angelo Ruggeri gives evidence that Wilson's statement on Dante's incoherence and madness (of course in his political behaviour) was rightly confirmed by the judgement that Roman Church gave on Dante's treaty book  "The Monarchy".

But Angelo Ruggeri, at a certain point, leaves the Wilson's path and chooses his own ground:

" And if we  suppose "- asks the italian writer - "that Dante was neither Guelf nor Ghibeline, just wanting to be a mere and pure republican against both the papalist and the foreigner imperialists besieging Florence at the same time?"

... to be continued...