
“Una serie di link per non perdersi nella selva oscura di eventi dedicati al Sommo Vate nel 700esimo anno dalla sua morte.” –Cristiana Solinas, Paroledavendere, March 26, 2021
Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“Una serie di link per non perdersi nella selva oscura di eventi dedicati al Sommo Vate nel 700esimo anno dalla sua morte.” –Cristiana Solinas, Paroledavendere, March 26, 2021
“For many visitors to Tuscany, their first taste of Dante’s verses came with their first taste of bistecca alla Fiorentina, crowded around the boisterous restaurant tables of local butcher Dario Cecchini. In Panzano in Chianti, surrounded by art and memory, Dario recites Dante by heart, towering over the modest shop display of carefully chosen cuts. There is a verse for every moment, from love to crisis, and the energy that comes with a celebration of life.” [. . .] –Marisa Garreffa, The Florentine, March 24, 2021.
“Regional carrier Air Nostrum has become the second Spanish airline after Volotea to support electric aircraft developer Dante Aeronautical. Dante says the three companies have made a joint presentation to Spain’s transport ministry in a bid to receive financial support from the European Recovery Fund for the development of fully electric regional air transport links in the country. The partners submitted a proposal for a €42 million ($50 million) budget to convert in-service aircraft for 9-19 passengers to ‘100% electric’ operation, Dante says. Noting that electrification of existing aircraft promises to be faster than the ‘long and costly development’ of an all-new design, Dante says certification of the first aircraft is scheduled for 2024, while ‘versions of various aircraft’ are to be become operational by 2026.” [. . .] –Cirium, FlightGlobal, March 24, 2021.
“Nowadays Dante Alighieri is primarily remembered as the author of the Divine Comedy, but there was a lot more to him than that. Politician and poet, he ended his life in exile from a city which he had once ruled. He elevated the language of the common man in order to give literature to the people, and laid the foundation stone that Italy’s Renaissance would be built upon. The exact year of Dante Alighieri’s birth isn’t recorded, but it’s been estimated as being around 1265 by working back from the age he gave for himself later in life. His father, Alighiero di Bellincione, was either a moneylender, a lawyer or both. Either way he was a solid middle-class professional, active in politics without being prominent enough to suffer consequences when those politics turned nasty. At the time there were two political factions in the independent Italian city-states, reflecting the two poles of power they were caught between. On one side were the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Empire. [1] On the other side were the Guelphs, who aligned themselves with the Pope and more generally with the idea of autonomy for the city-states. At least, that was the theory; by the 13th century they had become basically fronts for local rivalries and power-broking. That didn’t make the battles they fought any less vicious though, with thousands being killed in the Battle of Montaperta five years before Dante was born. Like most Florentines his father was a Guelph, and Dante would be raised in that faction as well.” [. . .] —Ciaran Conliffe, HeadStuff, October 18, 2018.
“[. . .] According to most scholars, Dante is referring to Vernaccia delle Cinque Terre from Liguria (sorry, Tuscans from San Gimignano!) Perhaps he became familiar with this wine during his stay in Lunigiana, in the first part of his exile from Florence.
“It is in that very same Lunigiana where Dante lived that Cantine Lvnae di Bosoni created a spectacular red wine in Dante’s honor. Verba Dantis, a blend of two native Ligurian grape varieties, Massaretta and Pollera Nera, is a full-bodied red wine reminding us of Dante’s intense and passionate personality.” –From “Dante’s March,” Suzanne Branciforte’s Italian Grapevine (March 30, 2021)
Read the full blogpost, which lists a number of wines commissioned to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the sommo poeta‘s death, here.
Contributed by Suzanne Branciforte