Dante’ s tomb was carefully decorated. He is highly thought of as one who used the vernacular so the common folk could read. He was able to educate villagers and many Italian sayings still come from his work.
A bust of him in a museum to his memory and his writing. Dante’s poems include the story of ‘ La Vita Nuovo’ who is Beatrice.
The story goes that at the age of nine he saw Beatrice also nine. She was to him the most perfect female in beauty and spiritual goodness, his feelings for her continued for the following decades even though she never returned this devotion. She was his inspiration. She died in 1290.
His parents organised a marriage for him and he had an engagement of eight years. He married Gemma in 1285 and had six sons and a daughter .
Dante’s most famous work is ” The Divine Comedey”. It is a long poem divided into three books. In the first book Dante is guided through hell by the poet Virgil. Virgil again guides him through purgatory for book 2 but Beatrice guides him in Paradise. This was all done with lights, voices in Italian (English subtitles ) with music in a very modern museum. It was exhausting in its drama.
( Personally I believe in a heaven, which will be here on earth after 1000 years and a quick second death for the wicked. No hell, no purgatory. Only Satan will have a 1,000 years to think about what he has done.)
Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that.
The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.
The more perfect a thing is the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.
Will cannot be quenched against its will.
Dante
Ravenna is also known for its mosaics. A work of intricate detail in Basilica di Sant Appollinare in Classe.
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil , and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. (Satan’s loneliness and boredom without us is what chains him. A very interesting chapter. Dante visited these thoughts and the Bible talks about them too. Sandy’s wording.)
Revelations 20: 1,2
Thank you for sparing a thought with me for Dante. Someone I ‘met ‘ in Ravenna. Here is one last saying from him in my post.
“I wept not, so to stone within I grew.”
Sandy.
PS
We don’t currently have good Internet commenting.. I am sorry.
Lovely post about an interesting destination.
Thank you so much Mike and Kellye.
Interesting. Deep. Beautiful too.
Thank you Shelly. So kind of you take an interest.
You are seeing so many interesting things! “I wept not, so to stone within I grew.” What a profound and thought-provoking quote.
Yes that was the one that stayed with me too. Italy is giving more and more…