Dante's bones How a poet invented Italy

Raffa (The Complete Danteworlds), a UT Austin Italian studies associate professor, devotes this fascinating study to how the treatment of Dante's remains over the centuries has reflected his centrality to Italian history and culture. Beginning with the long-running dispute between Florence, Dante's birthplace, and Ravenna, his burial site, over the poet's legacy, Raffa is meticulous in unearthing telling, and sometimes astonishing, details. These include how Franciscan monks broke into Dante's tomb in the 16th century to steal his skeleton, and how it was displayed in a glass coffin to huge crowds in 1865, in a commemoration of Dante's 600th birthday, which also reflected his symbolic importance for the newly formed Italian nation. No less fascinating is how Mussolini connected "Dante's virility and intellectual capacity," as supposedly deduced from his remains, to the Fascist Party's racial-supremacist agenda, and how, during WWII's later stages, the tomb's watchmen protected it from both Nazi looters and Allied bombing raids. Italy's fascination with Dante continues up to the present: a final chapter discusses the University of Bologna's painstaking computer-generated 2006 reconstruction of what the poet's head may have looked like. In tracing the history of Dante's bones, Raffa also provides an illuminating exploration of Italian nationalism and political thought. (May)

Dante Alighieri (1265--1321) exists for us as two bodies, the spiritual, expressed in the Commedia, but also the material, expressed in his image, tomb, and physical remains. This material body has exercised an influence almost as significant as the spiritual. Raffa (Italian, Univ. of Texas, Austin; The Complete Danteworlds; Divine Dialectic) traces the history and influence of Dante's corporeal existence. Ravenna, Italy, was Dante's refuge in exile and resting place after his death in 1321. Thereafter, it protected his earthly remains, "stealing" them on several occasions to protect them from church authorities who would have them burned, Florentine officials who would have them repatriated to Florence, fascist fanatics who would destroy them in an apocalyptic gesture. Over the years, Dante's identity shifted from heretic and cultural hero to symbol of liberty and national hero to nationalist and even fascist icon, each accompanied by various modifications to his sepulcher. In turn, his image shifted from the hatchet-face described by fellow poet Giovanni Boccaccio to softer features reconstructed from his skull by forensic anthropologists. VERDICT Pulling together many threads of the Dante's story, Raffa offers an engaging, informative, and original account of the material culture of the poet's epic body of work. Highly recommended.--Thomas L. Cooksey, formerly with Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah