Dante’s Comedy was immediately an amazing best-seller, read, commented on and copied starting from its first diffusion around the twenties of the fourteenth century (immediately following the poet’s death in the night between 13 and 14 September 1321). The growing success of his triplets went hand in hand with a growing interest in the author. Who was Dante
What was his physical and character profile
Was he a cordial person or an inaccessible and repulsive person Dante, the meaning of the verse “Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona”
On the occasion of the month dedicated to Dante, we analyze with the writer Dario Pisano the origin and meaning of the lines of the Divine Comedy. Dante according to Boccaccio
To answer these questions, the starting point is Dante’s Trattatello in laude by Giovanni Boccaccio, the first Dante biography in history.
The author of the Decameron presents it to us thus:
“It was this poet of ours of mediocre stature, and, after reaching the mature age, he went somewhat curved.” Boccaccio was right: in 1865, during the sixth centenary of his birth, in the opening of a walled door not far from the poet’s tomb in the church of San Francesco, a wooden box was found containing the poet’s bone remains, which were objects of a scientific reconnaissance. The report shows that Dante was of medium height (1.64 cm), of long-limbed structure, that he had sloping shoulders and that he had an ankylosing arthritis that made him walk hunched over.
“His face was long, and his nose was aquiline, and his eyes, indeed large than stalks, his jaws large, and from the lower lip was the advanced one above; and her color was brown, and her hair and beard thick, black and frizzy, and always in her face wistful and pensive. Why Giovanni Boccaccio was Dante’s first supporter
The writer Dario Pisano introduces us to what the Dante year will be by telling us about the esteem and admiration that Giovanni Boccaccio had for Dante Alighieri The afterlife tourist
Some women of Verona – while Dante he walked alone – they were struck by his dark complexion: it was proof that he had been in contact with the infernal soot!
Here is Boccaccia’s story:
“It happened one day in Verona, the fame of his works having already been divulged throughout, and especially that part of his Comedia, which he calls Inferno, and it is known by many men and women, who, passing in front of a door where several women sat, one of them quietly (in a low voice), but not so well that he and whoever was with him was not heard, said to the others: “Women, see him who goes to hell, and he comes back when he likes, and up here he brings news of those who are down there
».
“Truly, you tell truth: don’t you see how he has a frizzy beard and a brown color from the heat and the smoke that is down there.
“. These words, hearing him say behind him, and knowing that from pure belief of women came, pleasing him, and almost happy that they were in such an opinion, smiling a little, step forward. ” Dante and the art of the joke
The following writers (biographers and commentators of the sacred poem) offer us further material to outline Dante’s personality in its multifaceted specificity. All – unanimously – agree on the poet’s ability in the art of joking, that is, in giving sharp answers to the interlocutors who bothered him, who remained as if disarmed by his tongue so biting as he was.
Dante always had a joke ready. Once – says a biographer of the sixteenth century – «he was in the church of S. Maria Novella in Florence, leaning against an altar all alone, perhaps with his thoughts turned to his graceful poems. To whom a certain man presumptuously approached, I try several times to draw him along with reasoning. But having finally lost his patience, he turned to that man and said to him: Before I answer your questions, I would like you to clarify first what you think is the greatest beast in the world. To which the man immediately replied that he believed that the greatest beast on earth was the elephant. Dante then replies to him: O elephant, so don’t bother me ». Because Dante is father and mother of the Italian language
The writer Dario Pisano introduces us to what will be Dante’s year, or the year in which the seventh centenary of Dante Alighieri’s death will be celebrated. Dante was touchy
A fifteenth-century writer, Sercambi, informs us that once the king of Naples, the great Roberto d’Angio, decided that he had to know this wonderful poet. I organize a magnificent lunch at the court, and I invite Dante, who turns up very badly dressed: he had a greasy suit, and also signs of neglect on his face. The king looks up at him and, having never seen him before, mistakes him for a beggar and tells him to take a seat at the back of the table in the place reserved for the miserable. He, very offended, goes away.
At a certain point the king is told by one of his advisers that that gentleman was Dante! The king, incredulous and embarrassed, tells him to run immediately to intercept him, apologizing infinitely on his part and telling him that the king – to be forgiven – was waiting for him at dinner the same day. An even more sumptuous dinner is set up and Dante shows up with a completely different outfit: very elegant from head to toe! The king sees him and, after having apologized for the unfortunate episode of lunch, even makes him sit at the head of the table next to him. “So kind and so honest it seems” by Dante Alighieri and the concept of pure love
Sonnet inserted in the Vita Nova, Dante defines the canons of the poetic current of dolce stilnovo. Beatrice is described in unforgettable romantic terms.
The two begin to chat amiably while they are served delicious dishes dipped in the best wines of Europe. At a certain point Dante begins to behave in a strange way: he spills on himself the contents of the plates and the wine in the glasses, so as to stain and dirty the whole dress. To the king who looks at him in disbelief, the poet replies: “Holy crown, I know that this great honor that you have now done to the clothes, and therefore I wanted the clothes to enjoy the dishes prepared.” Dante and the egg
According to the author of the Decameron “he was still this poet of marvelous ability and of very firm memory”.
He was once on his own business in the square of Santa Maria del Fiore to take some fresh air, sitting on a low wall. «Now, staying there one evening, a stranger comes to him and asks him: you who are so learned – he asks – can tell me what the best bite is
. And Dante, without taking any time in between, replied: The egg. A year later, sitting on the same wall, the man who he had never seen again presents himself to him and asks him: With what
And he immediately replies: With salt. ». What the Supreme Poet could not stand
Franco Sacchetti (writer of the late fourteenth century) tells us that once the poet walked around Florence near a blacksmith’s shop.
Suddenly he hears this blacksmith who begins to declaim the lines of the Divine Comedy, but in a very bad way: wrong accents and crippled words. Dante gets so nervous that he goes into his shop and makes a fuss:
“take the hammer, and throw it into the street; he takes the tongs and throws it on the street; take the scales and throw away; and so I throw many fittings The blacksmith, turning away with a bestial act, says: What the devil are you doing You
are mad
Dante says: O you who do
my art, says the blacksmith, and you spoil my household goods, Street. Dante says: If you don’t want me to spoil your coasts, don’t spoil mine. Said the blacksmith: Or that I spoil you
Dante said: You sing the book, and not about how I did it; I have no other art, and you spoil it. ”The swollen blacksmith, unable to answer, collects things, and goes back to his work: and if he wanted to sing the song of Tristan and Lancelot, and leave Dante alone. “. Dante and Giotto’s children
Once I even humiliate his friend Giotto. They were together in Padua where Giotto was working for the Scrovegni chapel.
The painter introduces Dante to his children who had very deformed faces (the sources of the period tell us that they were rather ugly …). Dante asks him: “Maestro, which means that since you are the greatest painter in the world, you make beautiful figures for others, and ugly and unpleasant for you
”
To which Giotto, without getting upset, replied:
“Friend, you should be aware of the reason for this. I always do the paintings during the day, the sculptures at night; if, done in the dark, they succeed, so you shouldn’t be surprised. ”
Dante liked this answer very much, and they laughed a little at it together. ” Dante lustful
Boccaccio writes that in the poet “I find a very wide place” in the poet, not only in the young years, but also in the mature ones. ” But – continues his biographer – who among the mortals will be the right judge to condemn him
“Of course – he replies – not me.”
Several anecdotes circulate about Dante’s lust, the most amusing of which is told by Marcantonio Nicoletti, a sixteenth-century biographer. It is an episode that happened to the poet when he was a guest of Guido Novello da Polenta, lord of Ravenna. This gentleman, a refined humanist, discovered one day that Dante had spent a night with a “market woman” (a courtesan), from whom he wanted to know if Dante – as well as a poet – was also good as an amateur …
This young lady replied that ” it was worth little, because having had a lot of good beast under him, he had only ridden a mile ». Dante – having learned of this answer – said: “I would have also played the ace, but I didn’t like the dealer.”
These are just some of the anecdotes that have flourished over the centuries on the margins of Dante’s work. They present us with a less monumental and grim poet, and for this reason we always read them with taste and interest: they open to our gaze a hero in a dressing-gown; a human Dante, too human, in his superhuman poetic flair….
Dario Pisano
