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Foscolo, Dante And The Papacy, Peter Iver Kaufman

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Of the many interpretations of cantos and characters in Dante's Divine Comedy, few rival the wordplay in Gabriele Rossetti's commentary (1826-27). None that I know rivals its imaginative recreation of fourteenth-century literary and political history. According to Rossetti, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and a nest of Cathari were members of an underground network. Dissident poets, politicians, and church reformers therein camouflaged their attacks against the papacy to prevent detection and reprisal.