INFERNO, Episode 3. Who Was Dante?

In this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I delve into the life of the man who imagined and wrote this incredible walk across the known universe known now as “The Divine Comedy” (although he only called it “Comedy”).

We won’t cover any lines from the poem in this episode. Rather, we’ll touch on the historical context of the poem. We’ll go back to the early 1200s, to the struggles among the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal See, and the French crown for control of not only Florence but a big swath of the Italian peninsula. And we’ll bring that story up to our poet and through his death in 1321.

I’ll offer a rough chronology of Dante’s life. I hope you’ll come to see that nothing could have prepared us for the fact that this poet could, would, and did write the greatest work (to date!) of Western culture.

Dante (in red) by perhaps Giotto or one of his students, in the Bargello in Florence, Italy (this image is referenced in the podcast episode)