Album: By Country | By Date Italy | January 2001 < Prev Image | Doing the Tourist Thing in Florence | Next Image >
Travelogue: By Country | By Date Italy | January 2001  

 

Homage to Dante inside the cathedral by Michelino in 1465. This is fun only because the Florentines sentenced Dante to death - Dante was part of the losing faction - and Dante died in exile. The inscription is in Latin, though Dante chose to write Divine Comedy in Italian. We've read that Dante's use of Florentine Italian not only made Italian the language of European literature, but made the Florentine dialect standard Italian.

© Monica & Mark Hughes 2000-02