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| Study of Dante, Graphite on paper, Florence, Steven Rhude |
“You shall leave everything loved most dearly, and this is the shaft
of which the bow of exile shoots first. You shall prove how salt is the
taste of another man’s bread and how hard is the way up and down another
man's stairs."
Dante - Paradisio
Around
the time of Beatrice’s death, Dante began to immerse himself in the
study of philosophy and the machinations of the Florentine political
scene. Florence was then was a tumultuous city, with factions
representing the papacy and the empire continually at odds, and Dante
held a number of important public posts. In 1302, however, he fell out
of favor and was exiled for life by the leaders of the Black Guelphs
(among them, Corso Donati, a distant relative of Dante’s wife), the
political faction in power at the time and who were in league with Pope
Boniface VIII. (The pope, as well as countless other figures from
Florentine politics, finds a place in the hell that Dante creates in Inferno—and
an extremely unpleasant one.) Dante may have been driven out of
Florence, but this would be the beginning of his most productive
artistic period. -
Dante: Philosopher, Scholar, Poet (c. 1265–c. 1321)
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