Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Commemorative Coin Dedicated to Purgatorio (2022)

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(Image: ANSA)

“As a part of the celebrations commemorating the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato is minting the second coin dedicated to the Supreme Poet and this literary work.

“Issued today by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the coin celebrates the Divine Comedy, and this year is dedicated to Purgatorio.

“The Brilliant Uncirculated coin is made of silver, with a face value of 5 euro and a circulation of 6000 pieces.

“The second ‘proof version’ is in gold, with a face value of 20 euro and a circulation of 1500 pieces.

“Designed by artist Claudia Momoni, on one side the coin depicts the profile of Dante Alighieri, inspired by a Sandro Botticelli work (private collection), with the inscription ‘REPUBBLICA ITALIANA’, closed by a star.

“On the reverse is a depiction of Purgatory surrounded by the sea, the sun and stars, on the top of which a wall of fire rises in the Divine Forest. The verse ‘PURO E DISPOSTO A SALIRE A LE STELLE’, a verse that closes the Purgatory canticle skirts its edge. On the right is the value ‘5 EURO’; on the left, ‘R,’ identifying the Rome Mint; at the bottom, the date ‘2022’, the year the coin was issued, and the artist’s signature ‘MOMONI.’ The presence of colour is unique to the silver version.”    –“A commemorative coin has been dedicated to Dante’s Purgatorio on the 700th anniversary of his death”, Il Globo, September 14, 2022

“The love that moves the sun and other stars,” The Culture Project on Facebook

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“‘The love that moves the sun and the other stars’ has called you into being. This love has willed that you exist. You and I are priceless. You and I are precious. You and I are irreplaceable. If are looking for affirmation, look no further. If you are looking for acceptance, look no further. If you are looking for purpose, look no further. It may seem like in the grand scheme of things you’re insignificant, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“When you love someone, it’s as if they’re the only one you see. You just can’t get your mind off them. In an even deeper way, God the Father loves you without exception, and without condition. How beautiful it is to be loved by love! How beautiful it is to share this love. Let’s change the world!”    –Dominic, “The Culture Project,” Facebook, October 27, 2018

“Our Desire is a Gift From the Stars,” A Unitarian Universalist Blogpost

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“The word desire comes from the Latin desiderare: ‘to long for,’ but the Latin desiderare comes from de sidere: ‘from the stars.’ From the stars.

“I find this extraordinary: to think that somehow our desire, our longing, is connected to the very stars in the sky. The stars, which share their light with us across such impossible distances of time and space. The poets might say our desire is a gift from the stars and is ultimately for them and the beauty and mystery and the creative fire and energy of which they are for us a sign.

“I’m reminded of the very last line of Dante’s Divine Comedy — Dante, the great medieval poet guided by his love for a human woman, Beatrice. In his imagination, his love and his longing for her lead him on a great journey all the way to Paradise and to a final vision of the love which moves and connects all things: l’amor che move il sole e le altre stelle… ‘the love that moves the sun and the other stars.’

“This love that moves the sun and the stars is with you too, body and spirit, and with everything and everyone. If we can live out of that, the rest will take care of itself.”    –Laura Horton-Ludwig, “Our Desire is a Gift From the Stars,” Unitarian Universalist Association

“The Love That Moves The Sun And Stars” Blogpost (2018)

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“The following week, I’m reading the end of Dante’s Divine Comedy, when Dante ascends the final level of paradise, the Empyrean, and with help from the Blessed Mother, he is able to gaze directly at God.

“Dante is dumbstruck, unable to describe in language what he saw, save that it propelled him into writing down the Divine Comedy:

gustave-dore-vision-of-purgatory-and-paradise-by-dante-alighieri‘Here my high imagining failed of power,
but already my desire and my will were turned,
like a wheel being moved evenly,
by the Love that moves the sun and other stars.’

“God’s love moves the Sun and Stars, but most importantly it moves our hardened hearts, in spite of the million little ways we try to keep it at arm’s length.” [. . .]    –Michael J. Sanem, Incarnation is Everywhere, October 12, 2018.

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

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the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces-jospeh-campbell“The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest-as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars.”  —Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Chapter 2)

 

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Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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