Dante
John Took
Princeton University Press (December 2021)

Here is an invitation to the feast that is the Commedia…and to the life of he who created it

Disclaimer: I am a non-scholar in the field of Italian literature and am therefore unqualified to compare and contrast this volume with other biographies of Dante Aligheri (1265-1321). That said, I cannot imagine a more reliable and more accessible discussion of Dante — his life, his work, and his world — than what John Took provides.

He explains the organization of his material:

Part I “offers by way of contextualization an account of Florentine history from the early part of the thirteenth century through to the demise of Henry VIII in 1313 and of Dante’s life before and after his exile in 1302.”

Part II “traces his activity as a lyric poet through to the Vita nova with its now secure sense of love as a principle of self-transcendence, of knowing self in the ecstatic substance of self.”

Part III “focuses on those works leading up to and culminating in the Convivio as an essay in the ways and means of properly human happiness and on the De vulgarib eloquentia as a reflection upon language in general and poetic form in particular as a principle of collective identity and — in the case of the latter — of a now soaring spirituality.”

Part IV “gives an account (a) of the Commedia as, whatever else it is, an essay in significant journeying, (b) of the Monarchia as a meditation upon the deep reasons of imperial government and (c) of the Questio de situ aque et terre, the letter to Cangrande stella Scala and the Eclogues as each in its way testifying to the strength of Dante’s still scholastic and romance-vernacular allegiances.”

Finally, the Afterword “seeks to confirm yet again the deep seriousness of it all, a seriousness, however, ‘inmantled’ at last by a smile as but its outward aspect.”

Here is a brief timeline:

1265: Born in Florence, probably recorded as Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri
1274: Meets, falls in love with Beatrice Portinari (He was nine.)
1283: At age eighteen, he marries Gemma Donati; over time, they have four children
1287: Beatrice marries Simone dei Bardi, a banker
1290: Beatrice dies
1292: Vita nuova published
1294: Meets Charles Martel; death of Brunetto Latini
1295: Joins apothecaries guild
1300: Becomes a prior
1301: Dante serves in a three-person delegation to Rome for Pope Boniface VIII
1302: Black Guelfs seize ower in Florence; a White Guelf, Dante is banished for two years
1304: De vulgaria eloquentia published
1308: Begins the Commedia (“Divine” was added to the title about 200 years after Dante’s death)
1312: Moves to Verona, works on Purgatorio and Paradiso
1314: Inferno published
1319: Moves to Ravenna
1321: Dies there, probably of malaria

For more than twenty years, I have interviewed hundreds of thought leaders. If it were possible for me to interview Dante in 2022, here are five of the questions I would pose.

1. You lived in several cities. In which of them was your creative thinking most likely to thrive?
2. Who and/or what had the greatest impact on your personal growth and professional development?
3. What is your opinion of Nicolo Macchiavelli’s thoughts about leadership, expressed in The Prince?
4. With regard to attaining salvation, what is the single most valuable lesson to be learned from each of the three books that comprise the Commedia(i.e. Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso)?
5. Presumably by now you have been able to read John Took’s biography of you. There are frequent references to your “journeying”

Responses to most of these and countless other questions are suggested or at least implied in this brilliant biography.

No brief commentary such as mine can do full justice to the quality of the information, insights, correlations, and analysis provided in this volume but I hope that I have indicated why I think so highly of John Took and his work.

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Bob Morris