All Posts Tagged With: "Convivio"
Florence Diary I: Getting There
Note: I had intended to publish a Florence diary while I was gone, but computer problems made that project impossible. This reconstruction is based on notes and memories.
I shall begin with a confession. I have never really liked Florence. My initial negative impression was formed while spending a few days with our friend the late Leo Raditsa at Ulivello, his family’s villa outside Florence. The first half day was spent in the Santa Maria Novella Station, trying in vain to reach our host. Leo lived at a greater distance than I had imagined, and as a result I was not putting enough gettoni into the slot. I finally paid something like 80,000 lire to a taxi driver, who explained I had to pay for both ways. I knew just enough Italian in those days to know what he was saying. Zipping down the Strada in Chianti, I noticed a crazy driver weaving all over the road in an old jalopy (perhaps a last specimen of the extinct Cit). It could only be Leo, a man whose passionate reading was matched by his indifference to everyday concerns.
The Politics of Dante
I propose, in the two weeks I have before going to Florence, that we look at two works of Dante: the Convivio and the De Monarchia . Although the whole of the Convivio is worth our attention, I am only going to talk about Book IV, in which Dante talks about the empire, Rome, the authority of Aristotle, etc .
