“Italy’s far right has misguidedly claimed the medieval poet as one of its own for more than a century.
“The nightmarish visions of Dante Alighieri, with their many circles of hell, ringed in blood and fire, would seem perhaps a natural draw for politicians who traffic in the rhetoric of us versus them, good versus evil. But this doesn’t fully explain why the poet—who, after all, lived and wrote 700 years ago—finds himself quoted and adored like a medieval poster boy by Italy’s newly resurgent extreme right.
[. . .]
“The newly appointed Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano who, like Meloni, once belonged to a now-defunct neofascist party, said in a recent interview that he viewed Dante as ‘the founder of right-wing thought in our country.’” —Anna Momigliano, “Why Do Fascists Love Dante?,” The Atlantic, February 10, 2023 (retrieved December 28, 2023)
Read more at The Atlantic.
