https://web.archive.org/web/20111230060902/http://www.telegr...
Also, it looks like he was convicted under the Holy Roman Empire, which doesn't really exist anymore. I'm not sure who there is to overturn his conviction.
When Dante was convicted in 1302, Florence was the Republic of Florence. The Republic of Florence was subject to the Holy Roman Empire, but still remained a distinct legal jurisdiction (like a state.) The Republic of Florence was replaced by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1569, which ruled Florence (with some interruptions) until 1859, when it was conquered by the Kingdom of Sardinia, which soon became the modern Kingdom of Italy, which in turn became the present-day Italian Republic after WW2. Each successor entity inherited the legal rights of its predecessor entity – the Italian Republic inherited the legal rights of the Kingdom of Italy, which in turn inherited the legal rights of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which in turn inherited the legal rights of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which in turn inherited the legal rights of the Republic of Florence. One of the legal rights of the Republic of Florence was to rescind the legal judgements of its courts, even posthumously. Hence, that legal right has been inherited, through a chain of successors, by the modern-day Italian Republic, which therefore has a unique legal authority (not possessed by any other jurisdiction) to formally rescind Dante's conviction and sentence. Yes, it is a right of no practical effect, its exercise would be of purely symbolic consequence, but it would be the unique possession of the Italian Republic.
(The succession story I presented – Republic of Florence => Grand Duchy of Tuscany => Kingdom of Sardinia => Kingdom of Italy => Italian Republic – is no doubt somewhat simplified, but I don't think fleshing out those added details would change the ultimate conclusion.)
The word "Italia" dates back to before Rome was not even a town. It used to be the name given to all those populations living in the central and southern part of the peninsula because of their habit to worship the "vitello" (calf) or to breed calfs.
Before becoming a politically united nation, they used to speak the very same language from Sicily to Piedmont, from Veneto to Sardinia. "Italia" was a geographic expression only for the blinds.
America has been named after Amerigo (Americo) Vespucci, the Italian explorer who recognized it was actually as a brand new world. And so on.
Yes, Italy doesn't seem to be that united today. The same happens to Spain, the United Kingdom and even the USA sometimes show cracks in the union between the two coasts...
Source? According to linguist De Mauro, before the Italian unification the percentage of Italian speakers was around 2.5% (on 25 millions inhabitants). Most of the people were speaking their own dialects, which - albeit descending from Latin - are not necessarily mutually intellegible
Mine is here: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_italiana#Dal_latino_vol...
I guess it very much depends on whether you consider writers, academics, and in general literate people, or the majority of the populace. In the former case, it's true that Italian was used across the peninsula.
Big reasons why fascism was born in Italy was the counter-revolutionary movement as a response to the big socialist movement and the disastrous social and economical situation after WWI, which seem equally common in Germany but also in other Fascist countries (Portugal, Spain). My guess is that we don't remember those as much mostly because they remained neutral in WWII, so there was no propaganda about them.
Further, I’d argue that Portugal and Spain can play a role to help further this theory. While Italy and Germany spent the years developing a national identity at war to enlarge their nations (and form this outright) Spain and Portugal spent that same time period developing into a single culture while fending off newcomers and trying to keep their nations intact. For this reason their form a fascism was less expansionist (or to be correct, was less able to be convinced that expansion was their only hope.)
But no, I'm pointing out that it seems like his conviction was already overturned, so what exactly is the complaint?
dante is exiled from a city he lovingly intersperses throughout his fiction in some of the most famous and beautiful and utterly complex poetry of all time by one of the most famously corrupt rulers in all of human history for things he wrote ~in his poems~ and over 700 years later the sum total of human technology allows someone to say his political conviction by a no longer existing state is justified because of these thought crimes on a site that notionally believes in freedom of speech or at the very least thought.
hope it is better wherever you are dante.
My main point remains "I think his conviction was already overturned, so there's no gesture left to for modern authorities to symbolically make".
The declaration you linked is symbolic only - and the Italian sources [0] indicate the plan this time is to look if the case can be re-tried in light of some new evidence.
[0] https://www.corriere.it/cronache/21_gennaio_31/contro-mio-av...
Seems silly. Should they overturn Jesus' conviction too? At a certain point the conviction is part of their story.
Humanity has already walked down this path before: The kings of England would routinely invalidate treaties made by predecessors.
Let’s not retread our steps, yes? The world is much calmer and safer for it.
Or in another case if a country is ruled by a genocidal dictatorship and there is a rebellion, should the new government be bound by the treaties made by the dictator? What if that dictator had been installed by a foriegn government?
For example, while as a practical matter the Roman Catholic Pope's role during the Holy Roman Empire was largely constrained to spiritual and religious matters, the Pope nonetheless retained significant secular authority (e.g. over lands, etc) that the Emperor was obliged to respect. Failing to do so would result in illegality. Likewise the Emperor was at least in principle equal with other monarchs in Europe, so had obligations viz-a-viz them that couldn't be unilaterally skirted. Contrast that with the Westphalian system, where legal sovereignty is absolute within a territorial domain and where failure to respect an interstate obligation doesn't necessarily manifest as any kind of domestic illegality. Thus, when a state violates a treaty there's no expectation that its citizens construe the violation as illegitimate and to act and be responsible accordingly. (Modern international human rights theory being a very recent exception.)
I know Chinese legal, political, and religious systems were rich and sophisticated, but AFAIU in Imperial China, which accounts for most of the past 2000 years of mainland Chinese political history, the emperor was legally accountable to no temporal authority. Though, of course, it behooved emperors to abstain from exercising that absolute authority, obey legal and other norms, and adhere to their heavenly mandate.
It's an important distinction because it reflects cultures' (and thus its peoples') conceptions of power and legitimacy, which in turn directly constrains what is practically achievable by authority figures within and without their domain. It's no accident the Westphalian system of states arose in the West, nor the successful, widespread systemization of democratic political systems. Similarly, it's not surprising why Westerns in particular (which is not to say uniquely) would find interesting such an abstruse question regarding the exoneration of Dante.
> China was politically divided during multiple periods in its history, with different regions ruled by different dynasties. These dynasties effectively functioned as separate states with their own court and political institutions. Political division existed during the Three Kingdoms, the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern and Southern dynasties, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods, among others.
Is this going to feed someone who's hungry? Shelter someone who's homeless? Do anything that will make any actual difference in the life of any living person? No? Then why are we wasting time on it?
I don't really understand the point of inquiries like this. Obviously you are here "wasting" time that could be spent on those activities as well, and yet you (rightfully) aren't hostile toward yourself for it.
Sure, I'll spend time faffing about and commenting on HN, but I don't think that Congress needs to pass a resolution about it.
Probably one election cycle.