Alberto Cavallari, commenting on a famous reflection by Elias Canetti, argued that "we take refuge in the calendar to relive the present through its anniversaries and to seek a guarantee of what will happen. Dates and anniversaries of certain days are of capital importance in general paranoia and also serve to absorb fear."

Who knows if those who today celebrate the seventh centenary of the death of Dante Alighieri(anniversary if only for these reasons to be honored) are fully aware of the value that his work still has. We are all indebted for what his genius has transmitted to us, and the initiatives underway everywhere in the world prove it. We Italians in particular, given that he was the creator of our language and that he transmitted to us an idea of ​​Nation, when ours was not yet a Nation.

Among those who have loved Dante since high school, there is Sergio Mattarella. Who, by intellectual formation, is a humanist. He approached the Divine Comedy since adolescence, and he never stopped cultivating his reading. It was therefore inevitable to propose to him the theme of a work that, as was said of the work of the French historian Fernand Braudel, is "comparable to the famous magic hole of Borges... In fact, through it we see the smallest grain of sand together with all the deserts, the past together with the future, spring together with winter".

Mr. President, a year ago, announcing this anniversary, you said that "figures like Dante should be examined in the light of universality rather than current events." But even today it would seem inevitable to quote the invective that arose after the meeting with Sordello: "Ah, servant Italy, hostel of pain...". It is the pinnacle of the poet's descriptions of a country shaken by internal struggles and particularisms, crushed by intermittent decadence. Looking at the present, at our chronic lack of self-esteem and the rhetoric of decline that obsesses us, little seems to have changed compared to 1300.
"I must tell you that I have never been convinced by the attempt to update different historical figures and eras. I would therefore avoid analogies between the Italy of Dante, a man of the Middle Ages, and the Italy of today. Seven hundred years separate us, an immeasurable amount of time. Moreover, some of the difficulties and critical points that you identify in our character as Italians have their roots in times much closer to us: in a national unity that was formed later than other European states and that proceeded — inevitably — by progressive ruptures and accelerations and that saw popular consciousness assimilate the unitary experience more slowly and with more difficulty than the project that animated the protagonists of the unitary movement."

We must remember that, beyond the suggestions and the infinite levels of reading, the author of the "Comedy" speaks to every era and anyone can find keys to reflect themselves in his poem.
«That's right. This is also why, in my speech last October, I spoke of Dante's universality. That is, of his ability to transcend his time and provide indications, messages and teachings that are valid forever. Dante has been a point of reference and inspiration for generations of Italians regardless of the specific situations of different centuries and eras. Let's think, for example, of his rediscovery by the Romantics, of the real civil "cult" to which he was subjected during the Risorgimento or of the rhetorical exaltation that fascism made of him. His fortune throughout time should lead us to reflect more on the legacy - artistic, cultural, moral, and therefore unifying - of the supreme poet».

And what is the heart of this legacy, in your opinion?
«I believe that Dante's universality and, at the same time, his beauty must be sought precisely in his particular ability to penetrate deep into the human soul, describing its motions, feelings, and emotions in an engaging way. The vices that Dante describes - the tendency to sin, according to his philosophical and religious conception - are the same since the beginning of human history: greed, lust for power, violence, cupidity... The Comedy attracts us, fascinates us, questions us even today because it speaks to us about ourselves. About the deepest essence of man, made up of weaknesses, falls, nobility and generosity. Just think of the many passages of the Divine Comedy that have entered our daily vocabulary and that we use without knowing, often, that they come from his verses...
Dante has very firm religious convictions that oblige him to conform completely to the plan and justice of God. Nonetheless, during that extraordinary journey that is the Divine Comedy, in front of the souls of the damned or the blessed, the author never divests himself of the feeling - very human - of compassion. I believe that in this dilemma, extraordinarily challenging, between justice and compassion, perhaps one of the most important legacies of the Dantean lesson should be sought today».

However, oscillating between despair and hope, Dante does not neglect the virtues of Italians. For example, great humanity and the ability to do good even in conditions of adversity. And this innate "social capital" recalls many chronicles of solidarity of this difficult year of pandemic ... A year that someone has compared to Dante's Inferno.
«The harsh civil conflicts that marked Dante's troubled journey propose the value of the person, the value of the woman, central in all his poetics, recall the yearning and the sense of the Fatherland, but gradually widening its borders, affirming its being also a stepmother with reference to the condemnation to exile. Dante does not consider the mere common belonging by birth to a State, to a Lord, to be a binding element. His horizons, despite the bitterness of the forced distance from his birthplace, reside rather in the awareness of belonging to a culture in progress that transcends those borders and will express itself, over the centuries, in the aspiration to the recognition of a common identity. Hence his underlining the virtues of the Italians, the recognition of their inescapable vocation to the construction of a shared destiny.
To come to the final part of your question, I don't know how much we can compare the pandemic to Dante's Inferno. Of course, some dramatic scenes that we have seen and experienced, such as the line of trucks with coffins leaving Bergamo, would require your immense descriptive ability. Leaving Dante aside for a moment, I reiterate that in this emergency we have all rediscovered, beyond many unjust clichés, the great heritage of civic virtues - solidarity, altruism, self-denial - that has always belonged to our people".

How does an Italian identity arise in a fragmented political and institutional context?
«With the birth of a cultural identity, whose main instrument is language. Dante Alighieri's greatness is due to his ability to connect the experiences, the literary "schools" present in the various courts of the rulers and to unite them in an excellent expressive modality. Alongside the contents of his civil lesson, a language emerges, rich in its own lexicon that makes modern Italian an idiom that, gradually, with the processes of progressive literacy, would then be transferred to common everyday language. A non-abstract language, of the people - defined as "vulgar" to distinguish it from Latin -, not an artificially created Esperanto, but rather the fruit of a high reflection of literates that has matured over the centuries, the fruit of the recognition of a true and proper Italic civilization. This is what Dante himself suggests in his De vulgari eloquentia, recognizing, for example, the contribution of the previous “Sicilian School” to that cause: indicating it with the quotation from Jacopo da Lentini in the XXIV canto of Purgatory “But say if I see here him who out there/ drew the nine rhymes, beginning/ Ladies who have understanding of love”».

But the cultural evolution that Dante raises does not end there…
"Indeed. They are the seeds of that Humanism that would blossom in the following century in an exuberant manner and that endures in the identity of our country. Humanism that saw Italy contribute decisively to the affirmation of characteristics and values ​​that still distinguish European civilization."

Mr. President, you said at the beginning that you don't like the game of actualization. But is there an aspect of the poet's life that could teach something to today's politicians?
«It is valid for those involved in politics, but it is valid for everyone: his coherence. We know how much Dante was burdened by his exile from his Florence, by his nostalgia for his city. There is an illuminating episode in his life. A Florentine friend, whose name we do not know, writes to him that he is trying to obtain, after a good fifteen years, the revocation of his exile order and the consequent death sentence. To obtain “pardon” from his city, Dante would have to pay a fair sum and admit, in a public ceremony, to crimes he did not commit. Dante's negative response is both indignant and heartfelt: “Can I not contemplate the hopes of the sun and the stars everywhere? Can I not meditate on the sweetest truths in every place under the vault of heaven, if I do not first make myself despicable, indeed abject, to the people and to the entire city of Florence?…».

You cannot sell your conscience for survival: is this the lesson we should learn from Dante's choice?
"His sense of justice, his moral conception, compel him to refuse. Personal interest, the end of painful exile, is not exchanged for the surrender of one's own ethical convictions. It is not a question of moralism or arrogance, or even legitimate pride. Dante is moved by the conviction, highly moral, that going against one's conscience would make any result eventually obtained ephemeral."

The first Dantedì is celebrated on March 25th

Il first Dantedì, which is celebrated on March 25 (a date that coincides with the beginning of Alighieri's otherworldly journey to the afterlife, in 1300) was born from an idea by the journalist Paolo di Stefano on the pages of the «Corriere» in 2017. The name was coined with Francesco Sabatini, honorary president of the Crusca; the Day was then established in 2020 by the government on the proposal of the minister Dario Franceschini. For the occasion, Dantedì. Contemporary visions of the poet (pp. 115, euro 15, on sale at Librerie.coop), published by the Corriere Foundation and by «la Lettura», and edited by the Culture editorial team of the «Corriere», is in bookstores. The volume is created with the contribution of visual designers, who created 25 Postcards for Dante (a project conceived by Franco Achilli), and of the art director of the «Corriere», Bruno Delfino. With texts by Achilli, Alberto Casadei, Paolo Di Stefano and Arturo Carlo Quintavalle. On corriere.it the editorialist of the «Corriere» Aldo Cazzullo (in bookstores with A riveder le stelle, Mondadori) retraces with a sequence of twenty videos (one per day, excluding weekends) the descent into Hell. The multimedia initiative is curated by the weekly magazine «7» and Corriere Tv.

At the Quirinale

On the occasion of the celebrations for Dantedì, on March 25, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, live on Raiuno, at 19.10 pm, Roberto Benigni reads the XXV canto of Paradiso in the Salone dei Corazzieri at the Quirinale. Serena Bortone will present, with the participation of the ancient music group Al Qantarah. Also for Dantedì, the Bargello Museums in Florence are launching a series of initiatives. Among these, the video of the restoration of the portrait of Dante (the oldest that has reached us) and of the frescoes created by Giotto and his workshop in the Cappella della Maddalena will be available on the website fondazioneilbargello.it, in view of the exhibition «Honorable and ancient citizen of Florence». The Bargello for Dante which will be inaugurated on April 21.

Interview by Marzio Breda with the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella – 25/03/2021
Source: Corriere della Sera