This is an archive of past discussions about Dante Alighieri. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
While Dante's birthdate is conjectural, it should perhaps be mentioned that, as emphatically stated by himself ("O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno di gran virtù, dal quale io riconosco tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno"), Dante was born under the sign of the Twins. Mind that the dates corresponding to astrological signs have changed in time, partly due to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (e.g. Leonardo, born on April 15, was a Taurus). L'omo del batocio (talk) 10:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
In English: Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire/And drawn it out again, before I saw/'the sign that follows Taurus, and was in it./O glorious stars, O light impregnated/with mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge/All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be. Paradise, XXIII. 79.32.5.216 (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
is considered one of the last and greatest literary statements produced during the Middle Ages.
I would propose to write something different.
Linking Dante to middle age appears very limited, the influenceo of Dante in any time is enourmous and it goes beyond middle ages..
The wiki italian article is exagerated (saying that Divine commedy is the greatest litetrature work ever), but the French seems a good one..
From the French Wiki article:
Dante est le premier grand poète de langue italienne et son livre La Divine Comédie est considéré comme l'un des grands chefs-d’œuvre de la littérature universelle.
=Dante is the first great italian poet and its work La Divina Commedia is considered as one of the great masterpiece of the universal literature.
I propose to put this at the beginning..
The italian article doesn't say that is the greatest literature work ever (and even if, it should not be exagerated in my opinion; have you read the Commedia?); it just say that is the greatest work according to Borges, Milton, Leopardi opinion.
Dante is not the first great italian poet. He is important for his great work in standardization of the italian language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.59.146.64 (talk) 01:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC).
Radiohead
The 'See Also' section claims that three Radiohead albums allude to Dante. How and where? I've listened to all three albums and found nothing.
Before changing text, I'd enjoy some other opinions about.I think that he was a cery educated man he did all that he could in his life he contributed to writing and we are thankful for it
Really, AFAIK Dante is not usually considered in relationship with Renaissance, but better with "Dolce Stil Novo", a form of italian poetry with Petrarca, Guinizzelli and others.
Could someone verify this point, please, and see whether it would be advisable to correct statement?
Also, in Italy Dante is not generally considered a master of objectivity (his Hell is crowded with political enemies), so "His own views were independent and fiercely patriotic" could perhaps be better expressed as "His own views were not independent and fiercely partisan"
"... he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression ... "
This was stated centuries after, a posteriori, when Tuscan dialect already had become the main structure for italian, that simply did not exist at that time nor it was foreseen (there was no idea of Italy as a united country or single nation). Tuscan was elected as the main structure for italian also because of the dimensions of the whole of Dante's work (not only the Commedia), but a relevant role was played by the influence of Pisa's power and of many important tuscan people in Rome (like Michelangelo and several popes).
To say that "there was no idea of Italy" before of its unification seems really to be a very fashon idea; this is written in almost every page of en.wiki. But is simply false. And maybe also offensive. Somebody should read what an author wrote before writting articles about him. Dante the same, in La Divina Commedia, in the book Inferno, in the Canto I, line 100-111, wrote about his hope in an unification of Italy. The same Dante in De Vulgari Eloquentia wrote about the importance of create a standard language for Italy and so, afther a great work of research and classification he created the language in which he wrote La Divina Commedia, that was not Tuscan but Italian (so called since he so callad it). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.59.146.64 (talk) 01:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC).
I think you might be on to something here. Dante had a far more Medieval mindset than a Renaissance one. His only real connection with the early Renaissance is that it was occurring around him -- he was off doing his own thing extending and modifying Medieval thought. I simply don't know enough about Dante or Italian history to respond to your other points -- although they seem to be good ones. Go ahead and make the modifications you think are necessary. If the primary author of this page disagrees then you can further discuss this later (although my feeling is that he/she will be greatful for your contributions). maveric149
I'm not happy with the idea that Dante invented love poetry (as the text suggests): Sappho and Catullus come immediately to mind, as well as the troubadours.
Also, this text seems out of balance, being more on fine points of Florentine history, which probably should be moved to the page on Florence, than on Dante's works.
Nonetheless, in the meantime I've done a bit of copyediting, and translated a few things into common English terms instead of Italian. --Vicki Rosenzweig
EB gives Dante's birthday in the range May 15 - June 15, instead of the range in the Wikipedia. Does anyone know if this results from differences in calculations of the astrological signs in different years? Can anyone confirm when Gemini was in 1265? --Dante Alighieri 20:21 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
The current link to Vita Nuova is not to an article about Dante's poem. Andres 23:04, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I was also a bit discontent about the sweeping generalizations in the article ("all" Florentines being involved in politics, or sources saying that he had been to Paris). Although I corrected the ones I knew about, some may still remain. Also, the details concerning his life are--in my opinion--lacking. I added some (the diplomatic mission to Venice, for example), but others need to be added. (Boniface VIII being the pope that caused his exile, his ties to the old nobility, etc.). Moreover, the information about his works (even though they are in other articles) is lacking in my opinion. Although dwarfed by the Comedy, the vast importance of La Vita Nuova, De vulgari eloquentia, and Convivio are lost in this article. Information about his other poems and the Dante apocrypha (Il Fiore, for example) could also be useful.
Alighieri is not a list name. Shouldn't this article be at simply Dante? johnk 05:11, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
There have been other notable people known as Dante, an example being Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Surely, therefore, Dante should be a disambigation page, if anything? JKnight
Nonsense. If you say Dante you mean, well, Dante, however many other people there may be who have the name "Dante" in some part of their name. johnk 06:47, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That is, perhaps, too much of a generalization. The reason I mentioned Dante Gabriel Rossetti was because I often hear of him being referred to as simply Dante, too. So whilst Dante might always be taken as Dante Alighieri in relation to literature, it is not the same for art in my experience. Perhaps an alternate uses link, as seen on Homer might be a compromise? (As pointed out by HamYoyo). JKnight
I agree. Homer isn't a disambiguation page, but it leads to one, obviously for Homer Simpson. But it doesn't matter, as there's a redirection from Dante to Dante Alighieri.--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo(Talk)]] 10:43, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)
(Late comment) Note that Homer is a poor example, because Homer doesn't have a last name to put him on; the only other option would be something awkward like "Homer (poet)", which is obviously unnecessary due to his fame. A better comparison is that Napoleon redirects to Napoleon I of France, which links to Napoleon (disambiguation) at its top. In the same way, this page should be kept at Dante Alighieri for clarity, Dante should redirect here because he's by far the most well-known Dante and is commonly known by that name alone, and Dante (disambiguation) should be linked to at the top because there are many other noteworthy Dantes too, even though none of them are noteworthy enough to force us to have Dante be the disambiguation page (and noteworthiness is the standard we must pay close attention to here, not "how often they are referred to as 'Dante' rather than their full name"). -Silence21:36, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I think i can summarize this talk section: until you've internalized the meaning of WP:Primary topic, ya just won't grasp the core of this discussion. Go study that fundamental guideline topic, then come back and decide whether the following does capture that core:
"Homer" or "Dante" or "Napolean", when used without qualification, refer to the respective poets and the political general; people who doubt that in one case or another lack perspective bcz of having incomplete educations. If that don't bother them none, it's none of our business. If it does bother them, Hooray!, bcz using WP is, (tho not the ultimate means of addressing it) a free and potentially valuable tool for doing something about it. I don't suggest that WP can replace formal education for many people, but it's a priceless tool to accompany f.e., and a great thing for any self-starter who can't find a practical path to the f.e. they crave. --Jerzy•t10:33, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
(Mis)attributed quotation
Probably the most attributed quotation to Dante is the one from a JFK speech: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality", or some variation on that. However, that quotation is not in any English translation of the Divine Comedy that I've read, or else I just missed it. I have not, however, read his other writings. Can anyone source the quotation?
The reason I'm so skeptical is that Dante's arrangement of Hell does not follow any simple-minded gradation of punishment: there is no "hottest" place in hell, and the worst punishment, the ninth circle, is in fact a cold place where the lost souls are buried in the ice.
If the quotation is bogus, its misattribution would itself be a worthwhile addition to the article. Ellsworth 21:55, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK, I found it. It appears that Kennedy simply misunderstood the text, or more likely, had never actually read the Inferno himself. Here's a good page on the misattribution http://www.bartleby.com/73/1211.html.
It's also inaccurate. Those who maintain their neutrality are in the vestibule of hell, not the hottest place.Carlo20:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
There was something that said like "early sexcapades and family showdowns" as the title of the section. why would this be?
Actually, I think the real source for the principle, though not as an actual first-hand quote, is Solon of Athens. He is said to have instituted a law that if there was a civil war in Athens, those free men who had arms (practically every free man had or could get personal weapons) but who refused to take sides and fight or hand their weapons to the side they liked, should (once the fighting was over) be deprived of their status as full citizens. Quoted in The History of the Constitution of the Athenians, written by a pupil of Aristotle, and by e.g. Moses I. Finley. The Aristotelian work, incidentally, was unknown until the late 19th century when retrived in a papyrus find. Strausszek (talk) 09:49, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
What is wrong with Friulian?
I notice that someone's repeated attempts to put external links to Dante translations in Friulian are always quickly deleted.
I have no bias for or against Friulian (I didn't even know what it is until I looked it up today), but I'm not sure why the deletions keep happening. It seems innocuous enough -- being a branch of an Italianate language, so it sounds arguably related to Dante, especially in as minor a place as an external link. Since the article already includes such trivia as video game characters with the name Dante, then why the objection to a serious translation into an Italian dialect?
I don't see any external links to a Friulian version of any of Dante's works, (which might be useful if they exist). All I've seen is this: Friulian translation of the Commmedia., and this Dante in the Friulian language add to the "External links" section, neither of which is an external link, they simply mention a supposed translation(s) and a link to our article on the language which makes no mention of Dante. Paul August☎21:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
There was a mention of Dante in that article, which I removed: it was a bunch of external links to a commercial bookseller with some Italian description.
There's no mention of this work in the article but a Google search indicates that it was "a scholastic treatise on physics".
Could someone who knows more about this add it to the article as it seems like it would add an extra dimension to the man we think of now as purely a poet. --Spondoolicks15:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
According to manuscripts he's supposed to have given the lecture on that day in a church - in Ravenna, I think. The authenticity of the piece, as noted above, is disputed. Strausszek (talk) 00:56, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
COMEDY
Wasn't the work called 'commedia' just because it had a sad, dark beginning but a happy ending just and not because it was written in Italian?
Someone please correct me if I am wrong. The Divine Comedy was called a comedy in English because in Italian it was La Commedia. Although ancient definitions seem close to the current ones, in the middle ages it was usual for any story to be called a comedy if it had a happy ending, in contrast to, say, the Aeneid, which Virgil calls his "lofty tragedy" in the Divine Comedy. According to dictionary.com, the "earliest Eng. sense is 'narrative poem' (cf. Dante's 'Commedia')." I hope this was helpful. --15lsoucysalve.opus.nomen01:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
External link
Hi, I would like to add an external link to the World of Biography entry
probably the most famous portal of biography to this article. Does anybody have any objections?
See if anyone removes it. But the quote that graces the front page, and is also in the list of quotations, is apocryphal. Those who maintain their neutrality are in the vestibule of hell, not the "hottest places." And the deepest places in hell are ice, not fire, anyway. Carlo12:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
This user has added similar requests to link to biographies hosted on the same site to about 50 different articles. Although I believe that these requests were made in good faith, adding the links to all of the articles would be spamming. In addition, the biographies tend to be not very insightful and/or minimally informative, and the webpages contain Google AdSense links.
A fuller explanation of my own opinion on these links can be found here, if anyone wishes to read it.
please do not add this to the article, and please read the incident report before giving the go-ahead. This is spam and not link-worthy under WP:EL; the articles contain many distortions, lack citations, and contain nothing that wouldn't fit directly in the wiki article. a link to worldofbiography has been placed on over 70 talk pages by User:Jameswatt. thanks. --He:ah?20:57, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Add me to the list of people wondering this. I've yet to get a satisfactory answer for this question. Zaklog19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
why do we usually refer to famous persons by their surname rather than their first name? tradition. --Ajcee711:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but how did the tradition evolve differently for this particular person? How did the "tradition" arise to treat him differently than just about anyone else? Zaklog19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
It might have something to do with the fact that in his time and place, surnames were uncommon - in fact Dante's had been recently added, having come from his father, Alighiero. So perhaps it was standard THEN to refer to people by the first name, which was usually the ONLY name.
Okay, this answer actually makes some kind of sense. Thank you, whoever you are. Now that you mention it, this reminds me of a silly mistake in The Da Vinci Code. The appelation "Da Vinci" is a modern designation. No one in Leonardo's own time would have called him that. Zaklog19:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
The comments here about the prevalence of surnames is correct.
In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance Europe, ordinary people were usually known by their Baptismal name, and only used an additional name if it was necessary.
If their Christian name was relatively uncommon, like Michelangelo, then no-one ever used their surname and to an art Historian, using the name Michelangelo Buonarotti sounds like a bit of a wank by someone pretending to be knowledgeable. Caravaggio's name was also Michelangelo, so he is known almost exclusively by the name of his place of origin.
In the case of Leonardo, he lived on a hillside near a tiny hamlet, where he had no need of two names. When he moved to the small town of Vinci, at age 5, he would have been Leonardo di ser Piero (Leonardo the son of Messer Piero). It wasn't until he moved to a city that he needed to be distinguished as Leonardo from Vinci. "Da Vinci" was not his name, and it was ignorant of Dan Brown to use it as such. Michelangelo, on the other hand, was nobility, and had a string of half a dozen names to chose from, but didn't really need them, bbecause he so distinguished the one name. It is interesting that van Gogh chose to just sign himself "Vincent' in the manner of the Renaissance painters. Another case here is Piero. Piero is a dead ordiary name, and it would take an awful lot to make it stick out in the memory. So the owner of it had to chose where to call himself Piero d'Arezzo, Piero dei Monterchi or what? His name reflected his status. Piero della Francesca. Piero, the bastard child of Francesca... and that was the name he made famous.
In England, in the late Middle Ages, people often assumed names associated with their professions- Smith, Fletcher, Fuller, Tailor, Weaver, Dyer, Wood, Lock, Wright, Baker, Cowan. This also happened in Italy- a famous name being Tintoretto.
There's no other Dante around who has anything near the fame of this one. I agree the page could well be named Dante. Strausszek (talk) 22:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
This discussion is quite old. For me, the key is that if you enter just "Dante" in the search window, you end up here. That's enough for me. It works for, ahem, Elvis. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 23:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
History of Translations
This being the English wikipedia, I should think there'd be room for an article on the history of translations of Dante's work, especially of course the Commedia,into English, with some references to the often intense scholarly arguments such translations have created. Is there such an article yet? --Christofurio14:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
See Also
If this page were to follow the style of many other similar pages then the See Also section would be works directly related to him and his works. There should really be a section titled Uses In Popular Culture which would cover things like the band Sepultura, video games and Radiohead. KevinCarmody15:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Not much is said about Dante's thought in this article as it currently stands. It is commonly thought that the Comedy renounces the 'Averroism' of Monarchy and thus returns to the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. This has been disputed by several scholars: Gilson, Dante the Philosopher, and Fortin, Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Dante and His Precursors, and also in a recent book by Gregory B. Stone, Dante's Pluralism and the Islamic Philosophy of Religion. Obviously, in any expansion the more accepted traditional reading should be given pride of place but I would hope that it would be agreed that minority viewpoints should be mentioned too. There is also an online article - http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/tud.htm - by Paul A. Cantor that can serve as a brief introduction to this line of thought. Pomonomo200317:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
"Boniface quickly sent away the other representatives and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301) Charles de Valois was entering Florence with Black Guelfs, who in the next six days destroyed everything and killed most of their enemies. A new government was installed of Black Guelfs, and Messer Cante dei Gabrielli di Gubbio was appointed Podestà of Florence. Dante was condemned to exile for two years, and to pay a large sum of money. The poet was still in Rome, where the Pope had "suggested" he stay, and was therefore considered an absconder. He could not pay his fine and was finally condemned to perpetual exile. If he were ever caught by Florentine soldiers, he would have been summarily executed."
I found a mistake in this passage: it says here that Dante could not pay his fine, but I think that it might be wrong to say that he 'could not'. Dante Alighieri could have payed his fine if he wanted to; the reason he didn't is because he couldn't see how he had wronged anyone. Dante thought himself to be innocent in this matter. I think that 'he could not' should be changed to 'he refused to'.
Also, I think there should be some mention of how they took control of most of Dante's assets after condemning him to perpetual exile. Maybe it is obvious to some that when one is condemned to perpetual exile that one's assets would be taken control of, as there is no use for most personal possessions while in perpetual exile, but I still find it an important fact that needs to be placed in the passage above.
I hope that my suggestions were helpful in fixing this article, and I second the motion to create a related article for translations of La Divina Commedia. I have a translation of the Comedy by Leon Stephens, who I noticed isn't mentioned anywhere in wikipedia. Leon Stephens has also done many other important translations, and I feel that there should be mention of him somewhere in the article titled 'Translation', if not in this article.
The article has both. Either seems fine, but consistency is important. I propose "Guelph" since that's what's used in the linked article. Evan Donovan20:03, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I like "Guelph." Although that "ph" looks really Greek instead of Latinate. And, if that's the name of the main Guelphian ("Guelphian"?) article, that seems right. Carlo21:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions about Dante Alighieri. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
"Dante wrote the Comedy in his regional dialect. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression, and simultaneously established the Tuscan dialect as the standard for Italian"
Has the author of the page even read just a line of what Dante had written?
1) La Divina Commedia han NOT been wtitten in Tuscan.
2) Tuscan is NOT the standard for Italian.
3) Like it's written in "De Vulgari Eloquentia", Dante didn't like so much his native dialect.
4) Dante is famous because he created a new language (like many other men of his time were tring to) which has to be a Koiné for the Italian people. This language is now classified as an Italoromance language; and it has been strongly influenced by Tuscan and Sicilian, but it also taken some stuctures and words from Latin and all the dialects of Italy. Dante called this language Italian, and so is today known. This is the language in wich Dante wrote La Divina Commedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.59.200.1 (talk) 03:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC).
I live in Italy, and have studied Dante Alighieri extensively. Whoever wrote the above comment doesn't understand history, because Dante DID write the Divine Comedy in the vernacular Tuscan dialect, and the reason Italian is the language it is today comes from the Divine Comedy having been the first book published in Italy, even before the Bible. Dante loved his native dialect enough to choose it over Latin. If I am wrong, then it's a sad day for Italian public school systems...it would be like the Americans not knowing about George Washington.ovisbalat16:20, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad that you haved studied Dante Alighieri extensively. If this is real you can easily see that the language in which the Commedia has been written is not Tuscan but is a language based upon Tuscan but influenced by Sicilian and all other dielects of Italy. This is also what it is teached in all italian schools (and that everyone can see just reading the Commedia). Thank you for saying that I don't understand history, you're very kind (and even if, what does it concern?). The reason he choose to not write his main work in Latin is well explaned in De Vulgari Eloquentia. About how the Lingua Volgare had to be is also explained. He choose to create his litterary language upon Tuscan because that was the dialect that at that time had the main written litterature and in the previous century has been the erudite language of most of the italian courts. But becose he didn't like it (he found it imprecise and cacophonic, has he wrote in De Vulgari Eloquentia) he decided to mixed it to the other dialecs of Italy, expetially which of them had a great litterary experience as Sicilian.
Durante
It's only a not confirmed scholars' hypothesis, that his full name was "Durante". I think the first word in this article should be "Dante", not "Durante". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.60.179.29 (talk) 23:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC).
I agree that the first word in this article should be Dante. Durante should be mentioned as his probable given name. Durante is actually the name of the author of "Il Fiore", a poem which is attributed to young Dante by some scholars (I would say most these days). Gianfranco Contini's masterly entry "Il Fiore" in "Enciclopedia Dantesca" is available online (alas, in Italian). By the way, "Il Fiore" draws heavily on the Roman de la Rose, that inspired Chaucer too. L'omo del batocio (talk) 10:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Repetitiveness
The problem with this article is much less its content as its lack of proper structure. We have bits of biography here and bits there, and the same information is presented in different paragraphs, in the manner of backtracking. --Aaron Walden23:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
On the "List of comedians" page, Dante (1970-) is listed. Okay I understand that it's not the same Dante, but as the comedian doesn't have his own page and the link on the list page comes here, shouldn't that be changed? If this is the wrong place to put it, sorry, but I'm not a wikipedian.
81.187.6.20111:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Waiblingen "family"?
The article states "These [the Guelphs and the Ghibellines] factions fashioned their names after those of opposing factions of German Imperial politics, centered around the noble families the Welfs (Guelfs or Guelphs) and Waiblingen (Ghibellines), but adapting their meaning to the Italian political arena." On other hand, according to the article Guelphs and Ghibellines: "Guelph (often spelled Guelf, plural Guelfi) is most probably an Italian form of Welf, the family of the dukes of Bavaria (including the namesake Welf, as well as Henry the Lion). The Welfs were said to have used the name as a rallying cry during the Battle of Weinsberg in 1140, in which the rival Hohenstaufens of Swabia (led by Conrad III) used Waiblingen, the name of a castle, as their cry. Waiblingen, at the time pronounced and spelled somewhat like "Wibellingen", became subsequently Ghibellino in Italian." Thus there is no Waiblingen family, "Wailblingen" is the name of castle.
Did Dante write his Inferno ( and Purgatorio and Paradiso for that matter) in Italian or some kind of old, closer to Latin Italian? I realize at this time ( the 1400s) English was a great deal different then then it was now. Was this true for Italian as well? If so, the intro and wherever else it says it was written in Italian should be changed to something indicating that the Italian it was composed in is different than modern Italian. - Christopher22:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
No - it was Italian. While there is some difference, it is nothing LIKE the difference between (say) Chaucer and modern English. The Italian language has changed far less than the English language. Carlo23:36, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, surely it is Italian and has nothing to do with Latin, but actually it is quite different from modern Italian. In fact, no average Italian could ever understand the general meaning of a piece of the Commedia without sidenotes. --89.97.35.70 (talk) 22:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
There is no such thing as an average Italian. :D . Anyways, the above claim is not accurate. It largely depends on the piece. The Paradiso is widely considered the most "difficult" to understand, partly because Dante's language becomes more complex there, partly because of its massive theological content .L'omo del batocio (talk) 12:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above message. Many Italians know pieces of Divina Commedia by heart, out of passion, not for professional purposes. This shows that even today large parts of the poem can be understood without footnotes.--Broletto (talk) 15:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
My Italian instructor cited 'Inferno' as the standard for modern Italian. She was quite adamant about this and was also a native speaker from Rome. There are obviously commonly used words in Italian today that were not in Dante but if there is any confusion on the part of native speakers with regard to Dante it is due to idiosyncrasies of structural formation used today, not the actual vocabulary. DavidMSA (talk) 05:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Let me give an example. In the sixth Canto of Paradise Dante writes "Poscia che Costantin l'aquila volse / contr'al corso del ciel, ch'ella seguio / dietro a l'antico che Lavina tolse,/ cento e cent'anni e più l'uccel di Dio / ne lo stremo d'Europa si ritenne". Now, any literate Italian with a decent knowlegde of English (or viceversa) will be able to translate the above roughly as follows "After Constantin turned the Eagle / against the course of the sky that it followed / behind the ancient who took Lavinia / hundred and hundred years and more the bird of God / remained on Europe's border". However, unless the reader is truly erudite, he will need to peruse to the footnotes to get the meaning of the above verses, Constantin being the Roman emperor who moved the capital of the Empire (here represented by the eagle, which for Dante symbolizes also divine justice) eastwards to Constantinople, which would later become the capital of the Byzantine empire (the Roman Empire of the East, as Italians still call it), on the extreme boundary of Europe, while the "ancient who took Lavinia" is Aeneas, the Trojan prince and mythical father of Rome, who married Lavinia, daughter of king Latinus, after travelling westwards to Latium. May my clumsy remarks provide a glimpse of the marvelous plurality of semantic layers in the Comedy. L'omo del batocio (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I had this same question after reading several English translations and attempting to read the Italian with my very limited knowledge of Italian. As has been mentioned, the Italian in The Divine Comedy is very close to modern Italian, more so than Shakespeare is to modern English. My reference is from an on-line chat with Robert & Jean Hollander at [2]. The Hollanders do go on to say that even though the Italian used in The Comedy is similar to modern Italian, that contemporary Italian readers still have difficulty with the poetic nature of the poem and Dante's intentionally complex verse. Dante also scatters Latin terms as well as Provencal words throughout the poem. In the introduction to Hollander's translation of The Paradiso, the Hollanders also cite Dante's frequent use of his own neologisms. I think this would be nice information for the main Dante article but I'm not comfortable editing it myself. Gtbarron (talk) 22:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Dante writes in Tuscan dialect in a time before anything like an Italian language was even conceivable. The dialect, probably a great deal because of Dante, became the unofficial language of academics and scholars in Italy for some time, and eventually became standard Italian. So no, Dante didn't really write in "Italian."
Is it really necessary to call into question such claims as whether Dante is considered the greatest writer in Italian? I mean, I know that people are skeptical of making such broad statements, but isn't that pretty much a given? Let's remove the "citations necessary" things; if absolutely necessary, we can add a qualifier such as "Dante is frequently considered..." etc.. (Eeesh00:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC))
Minor changes
While I understand the laudable impulse to standardize lexical choices, I'm sure we agree that the consequences ought to be as accurate or more so, not less accurate than the original. "Lombra sua torna ch'era dipartita" is not actually the "rest" of a line, it is the continuation of the previous line in the next line -- it is the "rest" of the sentence, but the continuation of the line. So I have reverted "rest" to "continuation."
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that "missing" implies the loss of something that was once present or the omission of something that should be present. Neither applies to the intentional abbreviation of the sentence on the tomb. I've reverted "missing" to "absent." Perhaps "omitted" would work, except that the implied agency complicates the purpose.
I have reverted "returns to" to "returns among" to retain the sense that Dante gives that Virgil very much belongs among this group who give him such a warm welcome. I suppose old expressions like "return among the quick" may seem remote or out-of-date, but surely they remain part of our linguistic capacity as native English speakers.Robcuny03:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Inferno in PDF
I tried to add link to post on my blog, where I posted Inferno in PDF format. The bot removed the link based on the fact it links to wordpress.com. Since I don't have my own site, I posted the file on my blog.
The link was as follows (in "Divine Comedy online" section):
Hello, I have the entire text online of The New Life by Dante Alighieri translated by Charles Eliot Norton, with several essays of his that follow the translation on elfinspell.com.
I am aware of the nofollow rule and offer this information to add a valuable resource for Dante materials.
Norton helped form the Dante Society in America.
It appears that I can't add the link myself. Susan Rhoads (talk) 14:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)Susan Rhoads
A link to a translation of an individual work should probably be placed in the article about the work itself, not in the author's biographical article. I suggest you add the link in La Vita Nuova, where a different translation is already linked. Deor (talk) 15:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Deor. I was told that I could not put in the link myself because of conflict of interest and to bring it up here instead and let neutral editors decide if it is appropriate.Susan Rhoads (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2008 (UTC)Susan Rhoads
OK, I've added a link to La Vita Nuova. Wikipedia editors (including myself) get a bit twitchy when they see someone suddenly start to insert links to the same site into multiple articles in quick succession. It's best to ask on the talk pages, to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. (One should also check that an article doesn't already contain a link to the same public-domain translation hosted at a different Web site. There's no need for multiple links to the same text.) Deor (talk) 17:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I can understand that. Thanks, Deor. Once I finally got up the nerve to try to figure out how to contribute anything to Wiki, I did it all at once, having taken the plunge. It makes it more difficult that I have to do this on every talk page of every article that might benefit from some of the content that's on my site. Its easy to sympathize with the editors' postions. However, the great amount of time spent in asking on every page before linking is a problem at my end, too, even when I know the resource is often a very useful one. There is a lot of Dante related material on my site inc. Villani's Chronicle of Italy, in the only English translation, based on Dante's works, too, but adding one link was hard enough! Since I hand type all the texts, I feel guilty every time I am doing something else besides re-proofing the ones that are there (typos spontaneously generate, you know) or adding more books. Susan Rhoads (talk) 18:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)Susan Rhoads.
Making Sense of del Castagno Fresco
When I zoom in to look at the del Castagno fresco I notice that it is titled, "Dantes Di Alegier's Floretini" and not Dante Alighieri. I don't really know what to make of this, does anyone have any citable source to explain this? DavidMSA (talk) 06:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
There’s a lot of conflicting info in the article about his date of birth. The infobox gives a bald "14 May 1265". This is gainsaid by the lead para – "between 14 May and 13 June". That in turn is gainsaid by the first para of Life, which puts it "between 21 May and 21 June". And finally, there’s a 4th version in note 1 – "probably in the end of May".
What’s a reader to make of all that? Gemini does occur between 21 May and 21 June (roughly; the dates can vary year by year), but that’s only true under the Gregorian calendar, which Dante didn’t use because it was created in 1582, over 300 years after he was born. The relevant period in 1265, under the Julian calendar, was about 11 May to 11 June. So that’s a 5th version. But to take this much further gets us into the area of original research. It's very important for our credibility to be consistent in everything we say; if various pieces of evidence contradict each together, they should all appear in the same place so that readers are in a position to form their own conclusions. Currently, looking at different parts of the article in isolation will send readers down the garden path with less than full information. Can we put all these bits of data together, and since we should not be guessing a date, can we say in the lead something like “mid-May to mid-June 1265”, with a link to the notes. We definitely have to get rid of the precise date "14 May 1265" from the infobox, because that is only one of at least 30 possible dates. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
He argues that Latin, in the sense that we (and his own age) know the language had been invented by grammarians and poets, and that the unschooled people back then really spoke a vernacular that was less fixed, less high-style - more like the oral Italian he found in his time. That seems a bit laughable now, but you have to remember in those days there was no such thing as historical linguistics and little idea that languages changed over time. No clear idea oif the unity of Romance languages either, so to Dante it must have seemd hard to think that classical Latin had slowly evolved out of a peasant language. Strausszek (talk) 22:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I am aware of the verifiability issue. If I was not, I would have already redirected the page I am so certain. As I explain, there are few sources for primary uses of words. Google is not definitive, I agree, but helpful. Usually this has to be done via consensus, which was achieved once before in 2004 (see above).
That Dante is known as Dante has similar problems for "proof," but "The Dante Society" and "Dante's Inferno" refer to the poet, showing a general support for this.
A question for you, do you have evidence that the other items on the list are more likely to be the target people are looking for? (John User:Jwytalk) 01:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, here's a reasonably definitive argument: Last month, Dante redirected to Dante Alighieri. If they were not looking for the poet, they would click on the hatnote. Roughly 15% did. To me, 85% means its a primary topic (see http://stats.grok.se/en/200811/). (John User:Jwytalk) 02:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent)
Yes, Dante was viewed roughly 1000 times a day, Dante (disambiguation) 150. With some exceptions, most people will get to the dab page only if they are at the Dante Alighieri page and click the hat note. So 850 of the 1000 people that entered Dante were happy they were got to the poets page. 150 were looking for something else. (John User:Jwytalk) 02:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I believe that's because it remained as a redirect for years. DBZ is a similar case. For a long time, it targeted Dragon Ball Z but now it's a disambiguation page (there was no source for 'DBZ' to be the primary topic for 'Dragon Ball Z', therefore, no precedence in moving the dab to DBZ (disambiguation)). Anyway, in order to solve this, find a reliable reference to support your findings. A series of graphs, estimations, etc., is not what one would call reliable would they? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
The criteria is "When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer (significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that term or phrase should either be used for the title of the article on that topic or redirect to that article." (WP:PRIMARYTOPIC). The statistics are the actual usage of Wikipedia and strongly support the poet as a primary target. We don't often have such strong statistics for this. Its not "definitive," but should provide a good basis for consensus. Anyone else have an opinion? (John User:Jwytalk) 03:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Cleaning up and "reducing prolixity"
It seems to me that the recent edits by Mhazard9 are introducing disimprovements of the wording of the article more than they are improving it. For example,
Changing "The exact date of Dante's birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265" to "Dante Alighieri’s birth is, approximately, the year 1265"
Changing "Dante claimed that his family descended from the ancient Romans" to "Dante Alighieri’s family claimed descent from Ancient Rome"
Changing "While the vision of Hell, the Inferno, is vivid for modern readers, the theological niceties presented in the other books require a certain amount of patience and knowledge to appreciate" to "To the contemporary reader, his vision of the Inferno is vivid, the theological niceties presented in the other books require intellectual patience and historical knowledge to appreciate"
I'd suggest that Mhazard9 make his/her edits more judiciously (and fewer at a time), showing some recognition that mashing parts of short sentences together into longer ones, eliminating transitional words, and using ambiguous terms such as contemporary can alter the sense of the text as well as reduce prolixity. I'd also suggest that s/he make an effort to avoid solecisms like the run-on in the third example cited above, along with the various others introduced in the edits. For now, I'm reverting the edits; when I have more time, I'll try separating the wheat from the chaff and reintroducing the former to the article. Deor (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Defaultsort
Works of reference (Britannica, Webster's Biographical Dictionary) invariably list the fellow among the D’s, not the A’s. Do we really want to emphasize our uniqueness in this way? Deor (talk) 12:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry I felt this was too much to bear considering the ridiculous academic work supporting the consideration. I feel it'd be a clutter upon the article if it needed several citations there. Just my opinion, of course if one insists on it I cannot do anymore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.78.61 (talk) 07:58, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Inline citation
the article lacks inline citation so i started adding some from the beginning of the article, if anyone can help he is welcome.
please note that the same reference used twice makes more that one entry at the bottom of the article, how can i fix that?Mephiston999 (talk) 11:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the article could use more references, but citing potted online biographies and tertiary sources like the online Britannica is not the way to go; we need scholarly sources for this information. I've therefore removed the ones you added. (For guidance in citing the same source multiple times, see WP:Referencing for beginners#Same ref used twice or more.) Deor (talk) 13:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Can you please explain where I should find the reference for all the info in the article? is there a website I can check on? Can i use my school textbooks?Mephiston999 (talk) 17:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
WORKS
I think that the works section is far too short considering he is one of the most famous poets and writers of human history. I was planning on translating this section from the italian one which is very well organised and divided into subsections for each work he wrote. who thinks this is a good idea?Mephiston999 (talk) 09:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Added some, with an attempt to define his place in history. It's often said that Dante stands on the border between the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, but that creates some paradoxes too. He acquired a huge reputation in Italy for the Comedy, but in long-term influence on later writers of the Renaissance, baroque and classicist ages he was dwarfed by Petrarca and some later writers who now are far less read. Major pictorial artists seem to have appreciated him more than writers: Rafael and especially Michelangelo were deeply impressed. It's really only with the Romantic era that he returns to the limelight and his fame and influence grow to sensational dimensions. In 1700, nobody would have understood you if you proclaimed Dante was one of the great classics, even in 1770 it would have been a minority opinion. Inferno liberated Italian as a literary language but it didn't stand up to the kind of strict standards that high Renaissance and Classicism were to establish, it's too impure, too (deliberately) mixed in style, too grotesque and violent. Strausszek (talk) 23:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Dante's Racism
I was thinking a criticism section would be appropriate at the end of the article to cover Dante's anti-Semitism as found in his work. All agreed? Teetotaler 6 September, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.81.197 (talk) 07:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. Where would one stop with criticism of views that Dante shared with most Europeans of his day? Anti-Islamicism? Views of femininity with which many modern women and men disagree? None of these things are peculiar to Dante. They may or may not have a place in discussions of his works, but not, I think, in the biographical article, unless it can be shown that he went around spitting on every Jew he saw. Deor (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The point of discussing Dante's racism is not to show how much he was just like every other European simpleton of his day, but to bring an encyclopedic understanding on this conformist poet. But Doer could be right that such criticism belongs in the sections dealing specifically with his work and not in the general section on this death worshipper. Teetotaler 30 November, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.81.197 (talk) 16:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I apologize but I was unable to find a general FAQ regarding nationalities. Considering Italy was neither a state nor a nation in Dante's time, I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to list his nationality as Italian. Perhaps Tuscan? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bvicari (talk • contribs) 04:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
nationality need not be the same as state affiliation (especially so at this time, aristocratic rule and all; more subjects and less citizens) but I'd say the point still stands because the idea of an Italian nationality came only half a century later, so he certainly can't be considered an italian. Perhaps Florentine would be a more appropriate term? Considering this was 2 years ago, I'll make the change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.43.214 (talk) 19:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Dante considered himself Forentine and Italian, you can easly understand this by reading Divine Comedy...
Nationalities can exist without a State. The argument that the unified Italian State didn't exist at the time is illogical: We should not consider M. Luther and J.S. Bach as Germans?...
If we write 'major Florentine poet" it seems that there were others Italian poets born in others italian cities who were major than Dante...but it isn't true: Dante is the greatest Italian poet--92.140.117.99 (talk) 12:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
The political term of his time was not natio but regnum. The understanding of natio was rather an ethnic and geographic one. At the beginning of the Epistle to Cangrande, he calls himself (if the Epistle is authentic) "Dantes Alagherii, florentinus natione non moribus" (Ep 13,1): Florentine by nation (i.e. by birth and breeding), not by customs (i.e. he claims not to have adopted the vicious, namely greedy and treacherous behaviour of his compatriots). In the same Epistle he quotes the title of his work in the same way: "Libri titulus est: 'Incipit Comedia Dantis Alagherii, florentini natione, non moribus" (Ep 13,28) According to Guido da Pisa, one of his earliest commentators, this was his usual way of referring to himself in his letters ("in nullo enim Dantes Florentinorum vitia est secutus, licet esset de Florentia natus; et hoc semper in suis licteris ostendebat dicens: ‘Dantes Florentinus natione, non moribus’", cf. Lana "e però si scrivea ‘Dante da Firenze per nazione, e non per costumi’"). His extant letters do not confirm this claim. But in some of them he uses "florentinus [et] exul inmeritus" (Epp. 3,1; 5,1; 6,1; 7,1; cf. 2,3). In any case, he saw Italy as a linguistic unity (Dve I, viii, 8-9) and politically as a currently dismembered country ("le piaghe c'hanno Italia morta" Purg. 7,95) which Rudolf and Albert of Habsburg had failed or not even tried to heal, and which also Henry VII was prevented by his premature death to reintegrate as a part his empire. For a modern encyclopedia, it is fully ok to classify him as "an Italian poet, writer and philosopher" (except that he would perhaps not have liked "writer"). --2003:C9:273A:7A00:B145:EF7A:A0DF:B076 (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
It is stated in the article that Dante Alighieri entered the apothecary guild. Here it sounds as if he merely entered this guild in order to be allowed to serve as a soldier. I would like if someone could dig up more substance on this matter. What is known of his involvement? It is of interest to read his vision quest in the light of him being a medieval medicineman, so to speak, or having experiences with the use of entheogenic medicinal plants, available through the guild of apothecaries and physicians. The question is of utmost interest in regard of, what I believe is his own statement, that his journey is based on a true ecstatic experience during easter in the year 1300.--Xact (talk) 15:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think any sane scholar would say the Comedy was written under the influence of any kind of psychedelic drugs, mandrake or such. That's not a fruitful lane. As for the Guild, I have seen at least one very reliable Dante biographer stating that his joining it was a formality and that there's nothing to suggest that he had any medical experience. He needed to be in a guild to take part in city politics. Tigerstedt, a Swedish literary scholar who was familiar both with the middle ages and with Dante's awritings and Dante studies, made that point in passing in a 1967 biography and I can probably dig up a few more, he would likely have got that from some Italian or German biography. Strausszek (talk) 21:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Are you looking in the Vulgate or a translation based on it? If you're looking in the King James Version or some other Protestant translation, you want Psalms 90:10. Deor (talk) 12:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The policy is here: "Further examples of primary sources include: [...] religious scripture, [...]". With a decent secondary source that's not too old that itself mentions that someone used scripture to evaluate when Dante lived, that source could be cited and the anecdote mentioned. A primary quote could also sometimes be used in a context with any interpretation done by secondary sources. When an editor directly does that for the reader, it is original research. I didn't touch the text, but found that part odd and then noticed these comments. Hopefully this provides helpful guidance for other interested editors. —PaleoNeonate – 12:39, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Wiki's epic failure
All the way back in February 2008, I added a short sentence to the introduction explaining that Giovanni Villani (now on today's main page) was the first to write a biography on Dante. This is explained with some detail in Villani's article, under the section for "Nuova Cronica". Then, on March 10, some random user without a user page or talk page replaced this by asserting it was Giovanni Boccaccio, which is absolutely false. I should share some of the blame in not fixing this right away, but I can't keep track of everything on Wikipedia. Still, this says something about the collective failure of the Wiki community to check and verify statements (even cited ones) and other articles. How does something like this go unchecked for so long? For the past two years, people coming to this page would be under the false impression that it was G. Boccaccio, not G. Villani, who wrote Dante's earliest biography. Now that is an epic fail.--Pericles of AthensTalk19:59, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
It's mostly a matter of semantics, depending on what one chooses to call a biography. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for instance, says that Villani provides "our earliest account of the life and works of Dante" and also that Boccaccio's work is "the first formal life of Dante". It's hardly a matter of much significance to this particular article, and since it's nowhere discussed in the body of the article, I've removed both claims from the lead. (Your "According to a junior college site" couldn't, of course, be allowed to stand in any event.) Deor (talk) 20:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
If it is merely a matter of semantics, then I wonder what is the difference between "life and works" and the "first formal life" of Dante? Villani's Nuova Cronica was written in a very strictly linear format, I grant you, but a biography of Dante was provided nonetheless. And, it was written by 1322, decades before Boccaccio's work in 1357. By "formal" I'm assuming the Catholic Encyclopedia means it was the first comprehensive biography on Dante which was not a small part of a larger work (as in Villani's case). Regardless, you make a good point about this material not being covered in the article's main body, so perhaps the introduction is not the best place. However, I think some room in the body can be reserved for this issue.--Pericles of AthensTalk21:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, Boccaccio's book is full of legends and romantic figments which have vitiated Dante scholarship into the present. Of course Boccaccio wasn't into writing a critical biography, but a lot of his stuff is utterly unfounded (one of the worst examples is his story that the first cantos of Inferno were written in Florence before Dante left for the fateful mission and then retrieved from there - bah!) and that's long been recognized by some Dante scholars - not all though. Strausszek (talk) 12:32, 13 May 2010 (CET)
Hi Strausszek! Thanks for showing interest in this and adding that bit to the article; I thought the Catholic Encyclopedia was rather ambiguous in its terminology anyways. Cheers.--Pericles of AthensTalk18:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The inscription you quote is found on two medals of the 15th century, one with the head of Pisanello, the other with the head of Dante. It is divided into two lines, F.S.P.I. / P.F.T. 'Fides Sancta'/Fede Santa as the name of an alleged third Order of the Templars was invented by Guénon to fill in the letters F.S. and supply what he thought to be a better solution than the one proposed by Rossetti in 1840: "Fraternitatis Sacrae Kaddosh, Imperialis Principato". Both solutions are complete nonsense. In 1834, Charles Lenormant, wanting to attribute these medals to an artist who uses to sign as Corradinus M., proposed to read "FranciscuS KorradinI Pictor FeciT", but in this case too the name "Franciscus" was simply an invention to fill in the missing letters. Today widely accepted in epigraphic and numismatic literature is the solution proposed by Wilhelm Froehner, Mélanges d'épigraphie et d'archéologie, XI-XXV, 2, Paris 1875: "Fides.Spes.Karitas.Iustitia. / Prudentia.Fortitudo.Temperantia.", referring to the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues. They are normally distributed as three and four, not four and three, but the given alignment is in tune with the Platonic understanding of the cardinal virtues: Prudentia (assigned to the head), Fortitudo (assigned to the breast) and Temperantia (assigned to the belly) are the three lower virtues, aligned in descending order in the second line, whereas Iustitia, the highest cardinal virtue, not assigned to any bodily part, but resulting from the harmony of the three lower virtues, is placed together with the three supreme theological virtues in the first line. --2003:C9:273A:7A00:B145:EF7A:A0DF:B076 (talk) 19:52, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
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I don't know the origin of this quote, but if it is really his, I'd say he imagined, and wished for, Wikipedia: “What one man ignores another man knows. What is not known in one country is in another, and all the knowledge available to man would be simultaneously possessed if all human interests were free to cross together into
speculation or to act in its light.” Rhodesh (talk) 03:35, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
The first edit to establish a date format established the format Month DD, YYYY, and there seems to be no consensus to use any other format.
The {{death date}} template should not be used with the Julian calendar, only the Gregorian calendar, so I will remove the template but keep the date. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Since I'm the editor who reverted the addition of the navbox, I'll briefly state my rationale. I can see (dimly) a reason to include it in the articles on the Divine Comedy and its three cantiche (where I did not revert its addition), although most of the links it contains are already there, directly or indirectly, in the texts of the articles; but I see no reason for its inclusion in the article about the man himself. Links to stuff like video games based on the Divine Comedy have little relevance to our treatment of Dante as a person. (Actually, the same goes for similar cases, such as the inclusion of multiple navboxes for individual works—{{Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde}}, {{Treasure Island}}, and {{Kidnapped}}—in the bio of Robert Louis Stevenson. To me, these belong in articles about the works themselves, characters in them, adaptations of them, and the like, and not cluttering up the article about the author. Depending on what consensus is arrived at here, I may start a centralized discussion somewhere about the proper use of such boxes.) Deor (talk) 23:07, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes many elements to the {{Divine Comedy navbox}} are far afield from the topic of the author as they are not works by him and often present his themes in remote artforms. However, his work is the unifying subject of the navbox. His link belongs on the navbox and the navbox belongs on his page. The mere fact that he is the author of a subject notable enough to have his own template is informative to the reader. When an author has mutliple templates like these such as Robert Louis Stevenson (I created 1 of those 3 templates), Jane Austen (I created 5 of those 6) or Charles Dickens (I created 6 of the 11). Seeing them on the bottom of the page presents information. What is the harm of inclustion. It is not like there are 25 other templates cluttering the bottom of his page.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Deor, I don't like disagreeing with you, but I am leaning on the other side here. In fact, I think the Seven Deadly Sins box and possibly the Theology box ought to go. The first is only tangentially related to the topic (Aristotle and the Four Cardinal Virtues, if they had boxes, are more appropriate), and the theology box is not that a propos either (and I wouldn't put Dante in the "mysticism and reform" box--one vision does not a mystic make and that he was an activist, maybe, doesn't make him a reformer). If it's about the value of the individual links, I think the links in the DC navbox are more helpful than the ones in those other two boxes. Drmies (talk) 03:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
I am still actively creating these boxes with no objections anywhere other than this page. (See my latest two at Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov where all 7 of these templates are my work). I see them as a rough statement of cultural significance. I only create these for works that have had a signifcant number (at least 4) of adaptations/derivatives that are notable enough to have WP articles. For musicians I have seen a lot of backlash on my template work and I sort of understand why. Many of the cultural icons actually are hugely misrepresented in rough cultural significance measure of having an appropriate number of my templates. However, with authors, the most of the greatest authors have a significant number of these templates. My templating is providing some sort of cultural significance tag while adding links to related articles. In Dante's case, because of his era, even having a single works template means he is quite significant. Few authors over 200 years old have one. Also the only respondent has agreed with me. Would you either consent to my placement of the template or open the topic for wider discussion.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
In the first paragraph of the article, it states that Dante's famous work was originally titled "La Comedia", with one "m". In the first paragraph in the section headed "Life", it is spelled "La [Divina] Commedia", with two "n's". Which is correct?CorinneSD (talk) 22:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
The original title was "Comedìa" (not Comedia nor Commedia). In modern Italian, commedia means comedìa. The later poet Boccaccio (author of Decameron) called it "Divina Commedia" because it is a unique masterpiece, like if a God has written it and because it involves God itself.
(I'm Italian and I like the "Divina Commedia" very much).
Marco
P.S.
It isn't written in "Italian", it was written in "volgare"... which can be considered the first form of Italian language (the previous works were in Latin and "volgare" was the common language of poor people). Dante is the father of Italian language, indeed.
Interesting. And I see you made a correction in the text. At the beginning of your comment, above, I don't think you meant to write, "The original title was "Comedia" (not Comedia...). What did you really mean? – CorinneSD (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
It was about an accent... Comedìa should be read with the accent on the "i" wovel but I wasn't sure that there was the accent there at the time of Dante. In Italian it is pretty strange to see accents inside the word (we usually put them on the last wovel of words).
O.K. Thank you for the explanation, but I'm sure you realize that one cannot determine a difference in accent between two words that are spelled exactly alike. If you want to highlight a difference in pronunciation, you can: a) put a syllable in all caps, as in co-med-I-a, b) add a note such as , "with the accent on the 'i'", or c) actually add an accent mark (you can click on Special characters and find the right letter and accent). (By the way, the word is "vowel", not "wovel".) But, you didn't really answer my original question, why the word is spelled "comedia" in one place in the article and "commedia" in the other. Are they both correct, or is one correct and the other not? If they are both correct, is "commedia" just a later spelling of "comedia", as you suggested? If so, perhaps a note could be added to the text to indicate that "commedia" is a later spelling. Also, I don't really understand your point about a difference in pronunciation. Are you saying that the pronunciation, regardless of spelling, changed between volgare and modern Italian, or are you saying that the different spelling reflects a change in pronunciation over time?CorinneSD (talk) 18:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
The title is given in Inf. 16,127-128 (quoted from Petrocchi, but he does not differ in this passage from other accepted editions): "per le note / di questa comedìa, lettor, ti giuro ...". As the meter shows, the accent is clearly on the paenultima (on the "i"), and not on the antepaenultima ("comèdia"), and given the latinizing accent, the spelling too is with only one "m", although we don't know how HE would have written it with his own hand. If put into quotation marks, it should be quoted correctly as "comedìa", but if used in the rest of the article as the accepted title, the correct spelling is Commedia. -- 2003:C9:273A:7A00:B145:EF7A:A0DF:B076 (talk) 22:13, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
Dante Alighieri's La Divina Commedia's Mathematical System
I read this article, and found it interesting, but there are so many instances or original research and Wikipedia:Fringe theories that I would get lost. The article is over 41,000 bytes and is severely under-referenced. I thought I would bring this up, instead of a tag plastering contest, giving someone the opportunity to review it and hopefully make corrections. I will likely be placing some ref tags though.
Life: The third and forth paragraphs are not referenced. Dante reportedly fought at the Battle of Campaldino (inline link) but the section in that article is not referenced.
Education and poetry: Does not have any references. Content like "Not much is known about Dante's education; he presumably studied at home or in a chapter school...". Who is being presumptuous?; The second paragraph delves into his love that strays from subject of the section title. "Dante said he first met Beatrice Portinari...", means it is directly from Dante; " Dante's experience of such love was typical, but his expression of it was unique.". The third paragraph proposes that he, as well as others (with inline links) became the leaders of the dolce stil novo. Surely there are some references.
Florence and politics: The section does not have any references (nine inline links) containing things like: "Dante, like most Florentines of his day". In the second paragraph the entire story line of the Guelphs needs referencing as well as the rest of the paragraph. Interesting reading but...
Exile and death: There is an amazing amount of content for 6 references. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th paragraphs are not referenced. Out of this large section only 2 paragraphs are referenced.
Works: References do not start until the 5th paragraph. This is a lot of unsourced content for such a presumably high profile person.
All true, as far as it goes, but it doesn't mention that the article has quite an extensive list of books at the end, from which the article has certainly been constructed by editors who had good knowledge of them. This is thus an instance of a major switch in Wikipedia from the {known books - booklist - write article} paradigm, to the {single fact - write sentence - cite ref - little blue number} paradigm. These two represent quite different world views, and the way Wikipedia developed certainly favoured the first one for some years (maybe till the debacle of 2007), while it certainly favours the second one now. Calling it OR doesn't really do it justice: it was definitely not invented. Verifiability is indeed driving us all towards little blue numbers and uniformity, but that doesn't make all earlier editors presumptuous fools. The lack of inline refs does present us with a challenge, but the material is not unsourced: we just don't know which of the correctly listed sources applies to which claim. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Greetings: And what you say is true, as far as it goes. However, this article shows a first edit of 27/5/2013. "IF" that is true and we have editors that are going by some outdated form of citation policy, they need to read up on current policies and guidelines. If an editor doesn't like them then that person should bring it up at the relevant place. The whole purpose of the "little blue number paradigm" is so content can be checked. Policy does not mandate that I "assume" that all the information in this article (or any article) is sourced, as long as there is a list of books, but attribution is so that facts in question can be checked. I can not know that unless I were to read each and every book ("quite an extensive list of books at the end") in hopes to find the particular content in question.
Things like "Dante said" makes it a quote which is also covered. I would not call an editor a "presumptuous fool" but on the other hand I can not be considered such a presumptuous fool to "assume" that unsourced (as it is considered if I can't prove it) material is always actually supported, not synthesis, or plagiarism of published material, and that the general references are there to prove that. The only way I can do that is to check the facts. If this article needs to be rewritten to conform to policy and ensure Core content policies are followed, to include that a "reliable source must be provided for all quotations, and for anything contested", then maybe it needs a tag for that. Otr500 (talk) 07:16, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, there are such colleagues, and they still tend to edit like that. We agree (see above) that we are driven towards a uniform little blue number policy, and most of us use them for every addition. For backfilling, it is unfortunately another story: if we boldly removed every paragraph without a little blue job, the encyclopedia would be much the poorer. I've added many thousands of refs to existing articles, and have indeed also backfilled many articles which had lists of citations at the end. For an article like this, that would be a serious task, and you're very welcome to get stuck into it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:03, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Well thank you very much. You are a right fine person. I do a lot of edits as well as reviews and reference checking along with other maintenance. I can NOT possibly edit every single article that is lacking, even highly ranked articles, when discovering needs. I do go over my contributions list from time to time and will revisit articles, as well as make contributions and create articles. I also don't like career tags that will never result in improvements so I make inquiries instead of just plastering tags. Tags are sometimes necessary to provide listing in the relevant maintenance category so others may one day help but I do not like vague or unexplained tags so I include discussions when needed. I seem to think this would be a respectful thing and hopefully I am not mistaken.
I will kindly defer to your expertise (if we are nominating) and allow you the honors on this one. You would do such a fine job that you would present me with a barnstar for the suggestion. Otr500 (talk) 21:27, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
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Dante Alighieri → Dante – Dante Alighieri is better known as Dante, and when someone hears Dante, they think of him. So moving the page to Dante would be benefical. Thanks. P.S. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni is more known as Michelangelo and the Wikipedia page does not include his surname, so if Michelangelo's page does not include his surname. Why does Dante's page include it even though he is better known without it? Also, Dante has more google results than Dante Alighieri. Thank you again. Do the Danse Macabre! (Talk)00:44, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per Netoholic. As with NotTheInferno, I understand the nom's point, but I don't see a compelling reason to go against the well-established conventions here. Lepricavark (talk) 04:08, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Support per nomination, with submitted example of Michelangelo, rather than Michelangelo Buonarroti. This nomination has some similarities with the concurrent RM regarding Judas Iscariot → Judas. Such mononyms mostly reference individuals from antiquity, medieval times and Renaissance, who died before 1600, such as Erasmus or Paracelsus. Galileo, who died in 1642, past that arbitrary cut-off, is certainly better known by his mononym, especially in the English-speaking world, rather than by his Wikipedia full name, Galileo Galilei. Since Dante is best known, also in the English-speaking world, by his mononym, which redirects to Dante Alighieri, it would seem to present an argument in favor of its use. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)00:17, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Dante's name
I updated the article to first reference 'Dante' rather than 'Durante', along with a source that discusses his name. I think that this article should begin with 'Dante', the name used by the poet himself, rather than 'Durante', which may have been his baptismal name but is not attested during his lifetime. Mazzer323 (talk) 04:20, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Variety of illustrations
Would it be helpful to include illustrations by three different artists instead of three by the same artist, Gustave Doré, in the illustrations section to demonstrate Dante's breadth of influence/inspiration? OdoBem (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
23:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.