Dante's Invention

The young Dante was a love-sick poet who composed rarefied, intellectual verse about Beatrice, the girl he had loved since they were both children. As mediaeval Florence descended into turmoil that bordered on civil war, he seemed entirely uninterested by anything other than her. Fate had to work very hard to make him write his greatest work, the Divine Comedy. This is the story of how it did so. As the factional power-struggles that dominated Florentine life became increasingly violent, Dante f