Grudge Between Florence and Dante's Descendants Still Going Strong

Posted on July 31, 2008

A direct descendant of Dante Aligheri is now boycotting a ceremony by the city of Florence, Italy which was to posthumously pardon the famous writer for alleged crimes that got him expelled from the city. Apparently, the city council of Florence wasn't sorry enough to suit the present Count Aligheri.

Dante, the father of the Italian language, fled his native city in 1302 after being sentenced to death for crimes including fraud and extortion. Florence council was to have healed the 700-year rift with the poet by presenting the city's golden florin to Count Pieralvise Serego Alighieri. The count, however, believes the Florentines are not sorry enough.
Last month, a meeting of the council's cultural committee, held to annul the expulsion order, prompted the kind of rancorous divisions that led to Dante's exile. Five councillors voted against the annulment and several others stayed away.
Count Pieralvise said it was "anything but a collective 'mea culpa' and symbolic ending of [Dante's] exile". "I could have wept when I read the comments of some of the councillors," he said. The proposed reconciliation, the initiative of two councillors from Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, ran into fierce opposition from the radical left. Nicola Rotondaro, the leader of a communist group on the council, said Dante "did not need the council to rehabilitate him".
"If he had been sent to his death, would we perhaps have asked for his resurrection?" he said. The count said it was "as if the people of Stratford-upon-Avon had quarrelled over an event in memory of Shakespeare".

Dante had a dispute with the Papacy, which resulted in him being charged with various crimes and his departure from Florence. The bad blood between his descendants and the city remains to this day, which is really quite impressive. Now, that's what we call holding a grudge.