As part of its initiatives for the seventh centenary of Dante, the Dante Alighieri Society recently published the collection of essays and interviews “Dante secondo lei”, a work edited by Giuliana Poli that provides ideas and contributions for a reading of Dante from a different and original perspective.

The volume can be freely consulted online or downloaded in PDF format:

Juliana Poli, Dante according to her, Dante Alighieri Society, Rome 2022, 304 pp.

We would like to point out in particular among the 100 contributions that characterise the work the interview with Valentina Petarós Jeromela (philologist and Dante scholar, translator of the Divine Comedy in Slovenian and President of the Koper Committee of the Dante Alighieri Society), who expressed not only a female point of view but also that of the indigenous Italian community of the eastern Adriatic.

 

And tomorrow in battle think of me 

With the soul that wins every battle,
if he does not collapse with his heavy body.
Inferno XXIV, vv. 53-54

Why did you choose these words?

For us Italians living abroad, they represent the strength and spirit that allows us to choose to be Italian every day. In a context like ours, the territory that has passed to another sovereignty but that preserves buildings, history, monuments, cultural heritage in general, it is our duty not to let people forget its origins. Very often, in fact, there is a tendency to incorporate - perhaps also due to globalization - the pre-existing with a present that has nothing to do with our history. We must preserve our dialect, we must spread our history because many people continue to move to the Slovenian coast ignoring the reason for the Venetian-looking buildings. Our presence is absolutely necessary but it also often collides with a destructive political thought, instilled from the 1940s onwards by a dictator who, in order not to have to divide the territory with what remained of Italy, opted for ethnic cleansing. We represent what is left of that madness, we are often in fact defined as "remainers", but essentially we are Italians in a territory that is no longer Italian. For us, Dante represents not only the idea of ​​Italy, not only the exile, but the perennial exile.

What, in your opinion, did Dante want to teach us or convey to our thoughts here?

The strength to believe in an ideal in a world that is no longer the one in which this ideal was formed. Already for Dante without his two guides, existence was difficult: Florence did not want him, with an adventurous spirit he arrived in Istria, almost going beyond the boundaries of Italy. And here he saw how one lives as an exile, how one lives far from one's homeland, where to be considered Italian you have to speak in a language that does not make you "cruelly burp". In order not to change, the roots must be strong, the traditions vigorously linked to daily life. In order not to see a field full of graves, the ideal of Italianness must survive.

How much did this passage influence your life and why?

For me it has become almost a mantra, in an unequal fight. Of two million inhabitants, the Italian national community has shrunk more and more over the years (reaching 0,1%), so much so that it almost represents a faded memory. Our history and our culture are not taught according to an Italian standard, but a Slovenian one, increasingly reducing the verisimilitude between the past written by great scholars (the one we recognize) and becoming a simple paragraph reduced to a brief summary of a few lines.

How would you update the character and the text you chose in our historical period?

No way, it's perfect just the way it is.

What is Dante's relationship in the Divine Comedy with the feminine element? Is there a connection between them despite their diversity?

Dante is certainly fascinated by the feminine element. Perhaps also a little intimidated because in the sweetness of the ways hides the firmness of the being. Not understanding this profound dichotomy, he elevates it.

Which female character of the Comedy loves more, which one is right for her or would she like to be?

Perhaps, trivially, Francesca from Rimini. We have all fallen in love with an image, a false representation of a person, we have deluded ourselves... we have hoped to be able to change or live with an individual different from expectations. But this is not the case and the vortex of passion, sooner or later, overwhelms us all. Life is stronger than any imposition.

Who is Beatrice and what advice would she give to the modern woman, in her opinion?

If we consider Beatrice as a spiritual guide and not a lost love, we can understand her as the mother who continues to show us the right path. Even if we make mistakes, even if we distance ourselves from the family, the parent is always ready to welcome us and reassure us. She does not fail to scold us, hoping that we have learned from our mistakes.

How do you see the woman of the future, what will her role and function be and how will it change in the family and in society?

Our role is stuck in the mechanisms of society, we are not free to experience motherhood, professionalism and being fulfilled at the same time in our lives. Either we are mothers and we do not work, or we work and we create a position for ourselves, we fulfill ourselves as professionals, but perhaps losing the possibility of being mothers. When society allows us to be all three of these things together, it will be an evolved society.

Interview by Giuliana Poli with Valentina Petaros Jeromela.