Already more than 700 years that Dante wrote
The Divine Comedy
, and yet the work has not aged a bit.
In Ravenna, Italy, admirers of the poet Florentine have found an original way to pay homage to Dante's famous poem, on the anniversary of the latter's death.
Every day, in front of his imposing tomb, volunteers read an excerpt chosen by them.
Read also:
The Divine Comedy:
like a journey to the end of the night
An essential literary work, written at the beginning of the 14th century by the one who was born in 1265 in Florence.
Nicknamed the “
Father of the Italian language
”, Dante Alighieri is with Petrarch and Boccaccio one of those who will allow Tuscan to be imposed as a literary language.
He will play a very active role in the political life of Florence, and becomes one of the symbols of Italian unification.
But the Florentine will then be condemned for insubordination to the Pope and Charles de Valois.
He refuses to appear at trial, and is convicted once again.
The sentence falls: his property is confiscated and Dante is banished from Florence.
In exile, the poet will wander from city to city before dying of malaria in Ravenna in 1321.
Read also: Dante: a painful but creative exile
Hundreds of years later, in 1780, Cardinal Legate Luigi Valentin Gonzaga ordered the construction of a tomb in honor of Dante, in Ravenna. A sumptuous building in the form of a small temple surmounted by a dome was then built in order to keep the bones of the poet there. And it is precisely in front of this funeral monument, restored for the 700 years of his death, that admirers of the famous Italian meet every day.
A more intimate way to pay homage to Dante, as concerts, exhibitions and events of all kinds take place across the country.
In front of his grave, residents, tourists, scholars and the uninitiated can freely come to read or listen to a few verses of the
Divine Comedy
.
Several copies of the book in sixty different languages are available to visitors for everyone to find what they are looking for, as reported by
AP News
.
Read also: Seven hundred years after
The Divine Comedy
, they recreate the music
of Dante's
Hell
"
Reading Dante is perhaps the truest and deepest tribute we can offer,
" Francesca Masi, secretary general of the Dante 700 organizing committee, told the US news agency. “
She asks everyone to make an effort to go to Dante, while too often we ask Dante to come to us, stretching us perhaps a little without understanding him, by ideologizing him. On the contrary, this solemn way of reading, without commentary, is respectful.
», She clarified.