Image from Dante’s View, Death Valley, California
Cgil Strike, Genova, December 2008
The sign cites (with a little alteration) from Inferno XXVI, 118-120
Considerate la vostra semenza:
fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.’
Consider well the seed that gave you birth:
you were not made to live your lives as brutes,
but to be followers of worth and knowledge.
(trans. Mandelbaum)
Contributed by Virginia Jewiss (Humanities Program, Yale University)
Dante Park, Columbus Ave and W 63rd St., NYC
(photo by Steven Maginnis)
“The New York branch of the Dante Alighieri Society had intended to erect a Dante monument on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Italian unification in 1912. Carlo Barsotti, editor of Il Progresso (the first Italian daily newspaper in the United States), urged subscribers to contribute towards the creation the statue. . . The monument was dedicated that year, which was the 600th anniversary of Dante’s death. . .In 1921 the south portion of Empire Park was officially renamed by the Board of Aldermen for Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).” [. . .] —NYC GovParks
Dante in Protest
(Photo by Kavi Montanaro, October 21, 2008)
Banner on Via dei Servi in Florence, Italy. Students, faculty, and parents protesting funding cuts in education and privatization of the school and university systems.
Virgil is saying to Dante, “But no, Dante!… Even Inferno is now privatized… A single fiorino [medieval unit of currency] is no longer enough…”
