Dante Alighieri Society established by Royal Decree

King gives legal status to society promoting Italian language and culture

The Dante Alighieri Society was founded
by a group of intellectuals in 1889

Italian King Umberto I issued a Royal Decree on this day in 1893 from his estate near Pisa in Tuscany, establishing the Dante Alighieri Society as a charitable trust.

Umberto I had been king since 1878 after succeeding his father Victor Emmanuel I and he traditionally spent the summer at his country estate, Tenuta di San Rossore, situated on the Tuscan coast, within the Migliarino, San Rossore, Massaciuccoli Regional Park, having made it his primary administrative base during the month of July.

He recognised the Dante Alighieri Society as a charitable trust (ente morale) via Royal Decree No 347 to provide the organisation with official legal status to pursue its mission, which was to protect and spread the Italian language and culture globally.

The Dante Alighieri Society had been founded in 1889 by a group of intellectuals led by the poet Giosuè Carducci. It was during a period of mass Italian emigration and the Society aimed to maintain spiritual and cultural ties between Italian expatriates and their homeland. They also wanted to protect and spread the Italian language and culture across the world and nurture love and admiration for the Italian civilisation among foreigners.

By early in the 20th century there were Dante Alighieri Societies in Tunis, Zurich, Constantinople, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Belgrade and Barcelona, and libraries were established to allow Italians abroad to continue reading in Italian.

In the early 1920s there were 200 Dante Committees running societies in Italy and Italian colonies and another 93 abroad.

After World War II a new statute was enshrined stating ‘Societa Dante Alighieri, founded in 1889, aims to protect and spread Italian language and culture in the world, regardless of any particular politics, race, nationality, confession or ideology. It is the free association of those in the world who are united by the love for the Italian language, which is linked to cultural humanism and the universal language of music, morally inspired by the high model of Dantean character.’

The poet Giosuè Carducci was a 
driving force in the society's formation 

Dante Alighieri, after whom the Society is named, is Italy’s most important and celebrated poet. He was born in Florence in about 1265, but was forced to go into exile by the ruling faction in the city in 1302.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered to be the greatest literary work written in Italian and has been acclaimed all over the world.

In the 13th century most poetry was written in Latin, but Dante wrote in the Tuscan dialect, which made his work more accessible to ordinary people.

Writers who came later, such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, followed this trend. Therefore, Dante can be said to have played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy and is considered the father of Italian literature.

His depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven in the Divine Comedy later influenced the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Lord Alfred Tennyson, among many others.

By 1315 Florence had been forced to grant an amnesty to those in exile in exchange for public penance and the payment of a heavy fine, but Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile.

He accepted an invitation from Prince Guido Novello da Polenta to go to Ravenna in 1318. He finished Paradiso - Heaven - and died there, possibly of malaria, in 1321 at about the age of 56.

Dante was buried at the Church of San Pier Maggiore, now known as the Basilica di San Francesco. A tomb was erected for him in Ravenna in 1483.

Florence made repeated requests for the return of Dante’s remains, but Ravenna has always refused. A tomb was built for him in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence but it has remained empty.

Today the Dante Alighieri Society have many groups in 74 different countries connecting about 142,000 people throughout the world who love the Italian lifestyle and culture.

Dante's tomb remains in
his city of exile, Ravenna

Travel tip:

Dante’s house in Via Santa Margherita in Florence is now a museum, il Museo Casa di Dante, spread over three floors with exhibits illustrating the life and works of the great poet. Ravenna, where Dante lived in exile until his death in 1321, has a wealth of well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture is the Basilica di San Vitale, which is famous for its fine Byzantine mosaics. The city of Ravenna is mentioned by Dante in Canto V of his Inferno. Dante’s tomb is in Via Dante Alighieri next to the Basilica di San Francesco.

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The San Rossore estate in Tuscany was used by
King Umberto I as a summer retreat

Travel tip: 

Tenuta di San Rossore is a vast, protected estate of forests, wetlands, and coastal dunes stretching between Pisa, the Arno and Serchio rivers, and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Once a Medici and later Savoy royal reserve, the estate evolved over centuries through reforestation, hydraulic engineering, and careful land management, eventually becoming part of the Migliarino, San Rossore and Massaciuccoli Natural Park. Its 4,800 hectares encompass ancient pinewoods, forests of oak, ash, and alder, and the cotoni - historic coastal dunes shaped by wind and colonised by sub‑Mediterranean vegetation. Seasonal marshes known as lame create biodiverse wet depressions that attract abundant wildlife. Visitors frequently encounter fallow deer, wild boar, and an exceptional array of migratory and wintering birdlife, especially around the Lame di Fuori wetlands.  Umberto I continued the expansion and improvement of San Rossore begun under his father, Vittorio Emanuele II. Umberto I invested in its infrastructure, forestry, and animal husbandry. One of his most distinctive interventions was a renewed breeding programme for the estate’s historic dromedary herd, a population that had existed since Medici times.  

Hotels near San Rossore from Hotels.com

More reading:

Dante Alighieri, the famous son of Florence who remains in exile

The beautiful banker’s daughter who was Dante’s inspiration

Giosuè Carducci, the first Italian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature

Also on this day:

1610: The death of Renaissance genius Caravaggio

1853: The birth of painter Angelo Morbelli

1871: The birth of Futurist painter Giacomo Balla

1884: The birth of Cardinal Alberto di Jorio

1914: The birth of cyclist and war hero Gino Bartoli

1933: The birth of William Salice, inventor of the Kinder Egg

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Battle of Campaldino

Victory of Guelphs over Ghibellines established Florentine dominance

The Battle of Campaldino resulted in the deaths
of an estimated 1,700 Ghibelline soldiers

The Battle of Campaldino, which is seen as an important turning point in medieval Italian history, took place on this day in 1289 on the Plain of Campaldino, part of the Casentino valley in eastern Tuscany.

Fought between the Guelphs of Florence, approximately 50km (30 miles) to the west, and the Ghibellines of Arezzo, about 35km (21 miles) to the south, it ended in a victory for the former, crushing the aspirations of the Ghibellines to become the dominant force in the region.

It was a milestone moment that solidified Florence as the major economic and military superpower in central Italy, paving the political and financial path that would ultimately create the wealth that underpinned the Italian Renaissance.

The battle for power between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which was immortalised by the poet Dante Alighieri - himself a combatant on the Guelph side at Campaldino - in his Divine Comedy, spanned around 300 years of Italian history, between the early 12th and the late 14th centuries.

The two factions were characterised by one side’s support for the papacy (the Guelphs) and the other’s allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor (the Ghibellines) and while their bitter and prolonged struggle was for supremacy in northern Italy, the conflict had its roots in Germany.

It originated in the battle for imperial control between the House of Welf and the House of Hohenstaufen and spilled into Italy when the Hohenstaufen emperors - notably Frederick I (Barbarossa) and his grandson Frederick II - marched armies into northern Italy to re-assert their legal authority over cities such as Milan, Florence, and Bologna, which were still part of the Empire even though they had developed independent wealth.

The Guelphs and Ghibellines fought for supremacy in the
north of Italy for almost three centuries

This invasion caused division among the local populations and effectively forced people to take sides, with those who welcomed the order imposed by imperial rule siding with the Hohenstaufens, and those who resisted declaring their support for the House of Welf.

The names are said to derive from the battle cries of the rival houses - ‘Hie Welf!’ in the case of the House of Welf, and ‘Hie Waiblingen!’, which was  a major Hohenstaufen castle. On Italian lips, these evolved into Guelph and Ghibelline.

The split along the lines of pro-Popes and pro-Empire took hold because the papacy, which ruled a large swath of central Italy known as the Papal States, viewed the Holy Roman Empire as an existential threat to church independence and gave their support to the House of Welf.

Once the Pope versus Emperor narrative had become established in Italy, rival Italian city-states began to use these German faction labels to further their own aims.

If a powerful city-state declared itself Ghibelline, for instance, its bitterest regional neighbour would immediately declare itself Guelph to secure papal backing. Thus Florence declared itself Guelph in opposition to Ghibelline Siena and Ghibelline Arezzo, while Guelph Milan squared up to Ghibelline Cremona.

The names stuck long after the original struggle between the Welfs and the Hohenstaufens in Germany had been resolved.

The poet Dante Alighieri fought
in the Battle of Campaldino

The Battle of Campaldino came about at a time when Tuscany was deeply divided with Guelph Florence and Ghibelline Arezzo both intent on becoming the dominant city-state in the region.

The area was suffering from grain shortages and when Florence began to expand its economic and territorial reach up the Arno River to feed its growing population, it directly threatened the security, trade routes and influence of Arezzo. 

Tensions began to flare when Arezzo expelled all Guelph supporters from the city in 1287, sparking both sides to launch a series of raids on each other. The catalyst for wider conflict came as the Florentine Guelphs threatened the towns of Bibbiena and Civitella, prompting Arezzo to mobilise its forces.

Florence had assembled a Guelph coalition of soldiers from Pistoia, Lucca, Siena and Prato in addition to their own men, under the command of the professional condottiero, Amerigo di Narbona, and Guillaume de Durfort, his French military adviser. 

The Aretine army was led by bishop Guglielmino degli Ubertini and Bonconte da Montefeltro, the son of Guido I da Montefeltro.

The Guelph army not only numbered more combatants - 12,000 against 10,800 - they were better trained. The battle, which took place on the part of the Campaldino plain between Pratovecchio and Poppi, raged for several hours before a major storm struck, by which point the Ghibellines had seen 1,700 men killed and another 2,000 captured, against just 300 losses for the Guelph side. 

Soon afterwards, the Florentine Guelphs began fighting among themselves for power in the city, splitting into factions called the White Guelphs and the Black Guephs. 

Dante, who had fought at Campaldino as a 24-year-old cavalry scout, was a White Guelph. In common with the rest of his faction, when the Black Guelphs eventually seized power, he was sent into permanent exile in 1302.

It was not long afterwards that he began writing his masterwork, the Divine Comedy, which portrays the poet’s vision of the afterlife divided into three sections: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise.

The gruesome sights he had encountered on the battlefield directly inspired vivid characters and scenes in the Divine Comedy, including a meeting in Purgatory with Bonconte da Montefeltro, one of the Ghibelline leaders, who was slain at Campaldino and whose body was never found. 

The Pieve di San Pietro a Romena is seen as
a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture

Travel tip:

Pratovecchio Stia is a small town in the upper Casentino valley in Tuscany, formed in 2014 by merging the historic villages of Pratovecchio and Stia. It sits in a landscape of forests, Romanesque churches and medieval castles, near the source of the Arno river, surrounded by the Casentino Forest National Park, one of Italy’s most atmospheric woodland landscapes. The town itself retains a medieval street plan with many artisan workshops, especially those making products using the densely woven Casentino wool cloth. Things to see include the Romena Castle, once one of the most powerful Guidi fortresses, mentioned by Dante in Inferno. The keep, three towers and stretches of defensive walls survive, along with the drawbridge and the Podestà’s house.  Dante spent some time living in the castle during his exile from Florence. The Pieve di San Pietro a Romena, one of the most beautiful parish churches in Casentino, is a masterpiece of 12th‑century Romanesque architecture with sculpted capitals and a separate baptistery. Pratovecchio is the birthplace of Paolo Uccello, one of the great early Renaissance painters, celebrated for his pioneering use of perspective. 

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Travel tip:

The Castello dei Conti Guidi at Poppi, which has
echoes of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence

Poppi is one of the Casentino valley’s most atmospheric hill towns, crowned by the Castello dei Conti Guidi, a 13th‑century fortress attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, the architect of Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, of which it has echoes. Its soaring tower, frescoed chapel, and magnificent wooden library make it the cultural heart of the valley. Below the castle, Poppi’s medieval street plan unfolds in quiet stone lanes, Romanesque churches, and elegant loggias.  The Badia di San Fedele, with its terracotta works by the Della Robbia school, anchors the historic centre, while panoramic terraces offer sweeping views across forests, vineyards, and the winding Arno. Poppi also serves as a gateway to the Casentino Forest National Park, one of Italy’s most pristine woodland reserves.  Poppi’s cuisine is rustic and generous, including tortelli di patate, grilled meats, porcini mushrooms and the celebrated Casentino prosciutto. The town is renowned for its festivals, from medieval re-enactments to food fairs celebrating chestnuts and mountain produce. It is included in the Borghi più belli d'Italia - Italy’s most beautiful small towns. Poppi’s Palazzo Crudeli is the birthplace of Tommaso Crudeli, who was condemned by the Catholic Church as heretic. He belonged to the first Freemason Lodge of Italy established by the English colony in Florence, 1732.

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More reading:

How Castruccio Castracani masterminded a Ghibelline victory at the Battle of Montecatini

Dante Alighieri - the great Florentine writer whose body remains in exile

Beatrice Portinari – Dante’s inspiration

Also on this day:

1655: The birth of painter Antonio Cifrondi

1690: The birth of composer Giovanni Antonio Giay

1956: The death of writer and journalist Corrado Alvaro

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Dante Alighieri – poet

Famous son of Florence remains in exile

Sandro Botticelli's portrait of Dante,
painted in 1495

Dante Alighieri, an important poet during the late Middle Ages, died on this day in 1321 in Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered to be the greatest literary work written in Italian and has been acclaimed all over the world.

In the 13th century most poetry was written in Latin, but Dante wrote in the Tuscan dialect, which made his work more accessible to ordinary people.

Writers who came later, such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, followed this trend.

Therefore Dante can be said to have played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy.

His depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven in the Divine Comedy later influenced the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Lord Alfred Tennyson, among many others.

Dante was also the first poet to use the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, terza rima.

Dante was born around 1265 in Florence into a family loyal to the Guelphs. By the time he was 12 he had been promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, the daughter of a member of a powerful, local family.

He had already fallen in love with Beatrice Portinari, whom he first met when he was only nine.

A beautiful depiction of Dante and Beatrice in Florence, by
the English artist Henry Holliday in 1883

Years after his marriage to Gemma, Dante claimed to have met Beatrice again and wrote several sonnets to her, without ever getting to know her properly, an example of courtly love.

After defeating the Ghibellines, the Guelphs divided into two factions, the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs and when the Black Guelphs took power, Dante, a White Guelph was condemned to exile and ordered to pay a fine.

Dante, who was in Rome at the time, did not pay the fine and was condemned to perpetual exile. If he had returned to Florence he could have been burned at the stake.

By 1315 Florence had been forced to grant an amnesty to those in exile in exchange for public penance and the payment of a heavy fine, but Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile.

He accepted an invitation from Prince Guido Novello da Polenta to go to Ravenna in 1318. He finished Paradiso and died there, possibly of malaria, at about the age of 56.

The tomb of Dante Alighieri at the Church
of San Pier Maggiore in Ravenna

Dante was buried at the Church of San Pier Maggiore and a tomb was erected for him there in 1483.

Florence made repeated requests for the return of Dante’s remains but Ravenna has always refused. A tomb was built for him in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence but it has remained empty.

Travel tip:

Ravenna, where Dante lived in exile until his death in 1321, has a wealth of well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture is the Basilica of San Vitale, which is famous for its fine Byzantine mosaics. The city of Ravenna is mentioned by Dante in Canto V of his Inferno.

Dante's house in Via Santa Margherita in
Florence, which is now a museum

Travel tip:

Dante’s house in Via Santa Margherita in Florence is now a museum, il Museo Casa di Dante, open daily to the public from 10 am till six pm in summer and from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am till five pm between October and March. The museum is spread over three floors with exhibits illustrating the life and works of the great poet.


(Photo of Dante's tomb by Pivari CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Dante's house by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)

More reading:

Petrarch - the writer whose work inspired the the modern Italian language

Ludovico Ariosto - the father of humanism

Books:

The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

Dante: The Story of His Life, by Marco Santagata


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