The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization

The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization by Paul Strathern

Florence played a key role in the Renaissance. It was democratic. The Medici's were able to find religious loopholes to lead a banking empire. Artists, scientists and inventors were present. The book catalogs all in a time series, but is little too long and rambly.

Inferno

This Pinsky translation of Inferno attempts to translate the "everyday Itanlian" of Dante to everyday English. At the start, this seems to work. However, Dante fills the book with details of many local Florentines. Alas, these don't translate well to modern days. (Perhaps if we add Bush, Tom Cruise and Obama we'll get a more true translation.) I also began to lose the flow of the narrative as it continued on. At the start, it seemed to go through degrees of "badness". The people were getting progressively worse. Dante was criticizing them for their sins, and comparing the sins of the well known to the sins of the not-so-popular. However, it later seemed to fall into a "tell-all" book where he criticized the local Florentine luminaries.

Dante

Dante lived back in the 13th and 14th centuries. There are not many sources still remaining from back then. However, his Divine Comedy was semi-autobiographical, and provides one of the best sources for his life. R.W.B. Lewis's Dante biography attempts to paint a picture of the Florence where Dante grew up (though he was later banished.) However, the paucity of details leads to a rather dry, academic narrative. The last third is a cursory discussion of the Divine Comedy, with attempts to explain why Dante felt the way about certain people. Maybe after reading the Divine Comedy itself, it would be easier to understand.