Contributed by Aisha Woodward (Bowdoin, ’08)
Cgil Strike, Genova, December 2008
The sign cites (with a little alteration) from Inferno XXVI, 118-120
Considerate la vostra semenza:
fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.’
Consider well the seed that gave you birth:
you were not made to live your lives as brutes,
but to be followers of worth and knowledge.
(trans. Mandelbaum)
Contributed by Virginia Jewiss (Humanities Program, Yale University)
Dante in Protest
(Photo by Kavi Montanaro, October 21, 2008)
Banner on Via dei Servi in Florence, Italy. Students, faculty, and parents protesting funding cuts in education and privatization of the school and university systems.
Virgil is saying to Dante, “But no, Dante!… Even Inferno is now privatized… A single fiorino [medieval unit of currency] is no longer enough…”
