Feminine Micro-History: Dante’s Depiction of Female Characters in the Divine Comedy (Rodriguez)

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Women’s prominence in Dante’s Divine Comedy is undeniable. Many critics, among them Marianne Shapiro, have highlighted the female presence in Dante’s three canticles. However, the fact that the women in Dante’s Comedy, are all historical figures, women who lived during Dante’s time, adds a significant layer to their appearance in the Comedy.

In a micro-history, the analysis of a singular situation or the life of an otherwise unremarkable historical personage or detail discovers or draws attention to a larger issue. This approach, when applied to the female characters of the Comedy, uncovers a treasure trove of information and documentation of the lives of women during Dante’s time.

From Francesca da Rimini, as a victim of arranged marriage, to the theory that the shepherdess who greets Dante in Purgatory may indeed be the Florentine political figure Matelda of Canossa, a close consideration of the female episodes in the Comedy reveals many layers of historical context and sheds new light on Dante’s poem as a possible covert feminist text. Such a perspective also allows a possible connection to the growth of humanist values, as embodied in Boccaccio and Castiglione, and their presence in Dante’s prescient text.

Besides Francesca and Matelda, this episode also considers the characters of Pia de Tolomei in Purgatory and Piccarda Donati in Paradise as victims of forced marriage, as well as the peculiar, and surprisingly modern, situation of Cunizza da Romano in Paradise. Finally, Beatrice herself is yet another historical woman woven into Dante’s fictional work whose documentation reveals how effectively female micro-history serves as the catalyst for Dante’s macro-history of the Comedy. The possibility of female micro-history as an alternative and subversive account of the social paradigm of the time serves to consider Dante’s work through a different and groundbreaking perspective.

In this episode, Paola Rodriguez outlines the different female-historical episodes and discusses the historical situations surrounding their stories. Rodriguez also explains the micro-historical research method: first, how it connects and expands the female characters and their stories in Dante’s Comedy, and second, how a micro-historical approach can connect to, and transform, the macro movement of the Comedy, the issue of historiography in the Comedy and the feminist approaches to the Comedy. Micro-historical approaches to works such as the Comedy, and to medieval texts in general, allows for voices often found on the margins of society, whether because of gender, race, disability or political/religious discrimination, to speak to us and create its own, alternative, story.

Paola Rodriguez is an independent researcher whose main research areas include Italian and French medieval poetry, Romance philology, the depiction of women and love in medieval and Renaissance literature, costume design and illustration, and dance and theatre history. She received her Phd from the CUNY Graduate Center in comparative literature with a dissertation analyzing Dante’s language theory and the influence of Virgil’s medieval reception in the Divine Comedy. She currently teaches Italian language and Italian and French literature at CUNY Queens College. Her previous publications include an article for the Morgan Library’s online blog on the Ballets Russes and a chapter on the influence of Provencal literature in Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Further resources:

•  Barolini, Teodolinda. “Dante and Francesca Da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, Gender.” Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture, Fordham University Press, 2006, p. 304.

• Gallinaro, Ilaria. “«Come per acqua cupa cosa grave». Piccarda Donati.” Lettere italiane, vol. 73, no. 1, 2021, pp. 77–115.

• Ginzburg, Carlo, and Fry Collection of Italian History and Culture. The Cheese and the Worms : The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

• Ginzburg, Carlo. Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

• Ginzburg, Carlo. Threads and Traces : True, False, Fictive. University of California Press, 2012,

• Pierson, Inga. “Piccarda’s Weakness: Reflections on Freedom, Force, and Femininity in Dante’s Paradiso.” Speculum [Cambridge], vol. 94, no. 1, 2019, pp. 68–95

• Ruzicka, David. “Florence and the Gran Contessa: An Historicist Reading of Dante’s Matelda.” Dante Studies with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 132, 2014, pp. 35–57.

• Ruzicka, David. “« Scegliendo fior da fiore ». Exile, Desire and the Fiorentinità of Dante’s Matelda.” Le Tre Corone, vol. 3, 2016, pp. 25–56.

• Schildgen, Brenda Deen. Dante and Violence : Domestic, Civic, Cosmic, University of Notre Dame Press, 2021.

• Shapiro, Marianne. Women Earthly and Divine in the Comedy of Dante. University of Kentucky Press, 2014.

• West, Charles. “Visions in a Ninth-Century Village: An Early Medieval Microhistory.” History Workshop Journal, vol. 81, no. 81, 2016, pp. 1–16

Episode transcript:

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Paola Rodriguez: ​The use of micro-history as a fruitful approach to medieval literature is a relatively new idea and one which, as Charles West in his article on Dagobert’s vision highlights, is fraught with difficulties. Unlike later time periods, what is critically labelled as the Middle Ages suffers from not having as detailed historical records as later parts of history. One of the main tenets of microhistory as theorised by Carlo Ginzburg is the search for alternative and “othered” voices of history: women, minorities either of religion or ethnicity, the handicapped or those labelled insane, the lower classes, those who are uneducated or alienated or who simply do not count towards the over-arching, standard account of history. Medieval historical documents by and large tend to concentrate on the aristocracy, on male lives, and, in perhaps the only genre that seems to allow for alternative voices to emerge, on the lives of saints or holy figures. In recent criticism an interesting space has opened wherein medieval literature, through a judicious combination of interpretation and reconstruction, shows itself particularly open to a microhistoricalanalysis. Within this context, Dante’s Divine Comedy, a text based on historical interpretation, warrants a closer look as a micro-historical text ripe for re-interpretation, particularly as pertains to female-centered micro-history.

That women feature prominently in Dante’s Comedy is an undeniable claim, many critics, among them Marianne Shapiro, have highlighted the female presence in Dante’s three canticles. However, the fact that the women in Dante’s Comedy are all historical figures, women who lived during Dante’s time, adds a significant layer to their appearance in the Comedy. Dante himself plays upon this dimension with his central character of Beatrice: part living woman, part fictional character, Dante uses her corporeal presence to build his theory of historical re-interpretation. A once earthly love is revived and reborn as a celestial love, an interpretation built upon historical presence as well as oppositional, rebellious righting of historical injustices. In the physical world Beatrice dies and Dante is exiled yet both are inexorably bound to the spiritual history of the Comedy, and Dante’s own historical re-writing can be seen as a means of righting historical wrongs. It is precisely this use of justice and power through historical re-interpretation that I wish to concentrate on in the use of female history in the Comedy. Following in Ginzburg’s edict that micro-history addresses, or re-dresses, the lack of marginal voices at the fringes of history, I look at the presence of historical women in the Comedy as an example of oppositional history, of an alternative history authored by Dante.

​In the context of oppositional history, West highlights that although micro-history seeks to give voice to marginal voices this does not mean that the issues and problems it addresses are marginal; rather, the use of voices on the fringes is used to give alternative answers to large-scale societal issues. The case of Francesca da Rimini, the first woman that Dante encounters in Inferno, is an example of this; her personal struggle can be interpreted as a commentary on the issue of arranged marriages in medieval Italy and, more widely, on the issue of power and materialism, on the ethical dilemma of the use of human beings as merchandise and objects of trade in power. According to Barolini in “Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance and Gender”, Francesca’s position in canto 5 presents the dilemma of personal joy over public duty, offering a gendered reading of Francesca’s refusal of patriarchal structure through a passive, and thus feminine- gendered position. Of note is, as Barolini comments upon, the conscientious use of a person, Francesca, whose historical footprint is notoriously quite small. Barolini notes two historical texts, one by Marco Battagli, but all of them postdate Dante’s account of the events of Francesca’s life in the Comedy. The lack of notable previous documentation of Francesca, and the establishment of them after Dante, seem to enforce the perspective that Dante’s choice of Francesca as a historical figure is a conscientious and deliberate choice, one which seems to point to an ethical statement against the over-arching societal structure of marriages based on political, rather than amorous, convenience. The singling out of the episode where Francesca’s husband murders both her and her lover, seems to further enforce the use of Francesca’s story as a political statement, a particular use of the micro-history of Francesca as a commentary on the macro issue of marriages of convenience. Furthermore, Dante appears to yoke himself to Francesca’s cause, using her historical details, her place as an alienated and wronged historical figure, in order to express his own political and ethical thoughts against the patriarchal hegemony of the time.

The second circle of hell is where those who have chosen personal desires over reason reside, “che la ragion somettono al talento”, and is marked by the feeling of constant movement and change, “la bufera infernal che mai non resta/mena li spirti con la sua rapina” with its inhabitants incapable of finding peace. The list of characters (both historical and fictional) which precede Francesca show once again the division made by Dante between those who chose their personal desires (Paris, Tristan, Dido) over empirical convenience and public duty. Dante, picking from the historical figures of his day, chooses Francesca as the latest in this line, bringing the ethical and historical issues into his contemporary world. Furthermore, Dante’s choice is marked by a deliberate identification between himself and Francesca, Francesca may indeed be a sinner, but she is a sinner close in heart and, in many respects, similar, to the narrator himself, effecting a unity between the object, Francesca, and the subject Dante. Like Dante, she is a reader of Arthurian romance, “noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto/ di Lancialotto come amore lo strinse”, and Dante seems to use Francesca as an avatar for his own vernacular romance background, using vocabulary from, for example, Guinizzelli, “amor ch’al cor gentil” in her monologue describing the terrible event in her life. Dante thus yokes Francesca’s lived experience to his own literary background, to romance and the vernacular love lyric, to a time when personal desires were more important than being a “sommo poeta”, a poet conscious of public duty. It is telling that it is Dante himself who stops Virgil to speak with Francesca, “poeta, volentieri/parlerei a que due che ‘nsieme vanno”, seemingly immediately sensing an emotional nearness to Francesca, her spirit calling to him. This expressed willingness on Dante’s part, “volentieri”, places Dante as a kindred spirit to Francesca, his voice blending with hers in a univocality both mental and linguistic. Indeed, again and again in a way that almost never occurs in Dante’s conversations with the denizens of hell, Dante expresses his deeply felt compassion and nearness to Francesca, in verse 116, “Francesca i tuoi martiri/ a lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio”, to the point where he is overcome by pity and sadness and faints, “sic che di pietade/ io venni men cosi com’io morisse/ e caddicome corpo morto cade”.

The insistence on Dante’s compassion and nearness to Francesca serves to contextualize Dante’s gendered use of micro-history, using the alienated position of the middle-class Francesca to condemn the avarice and inhuman use of arranged political marriages. The practice of arranged marriage wherein humans, women, are used as merchandise and objects of trade, only succeeds in de-humanizing all those who participate in it, turning them into the “gru”, the birds that batter around helplessly in the winds of hell, the “bufera infernale”. The final fainting of Dante, “e caddi come corpo morto cade”, with its alliterative repetition of the “c”, further confirms the inherent compassion given to this episode, a compassion that seems to connect to the earthly, and thus human and historical, qualities of Francesca. If Francesca is a sinner, so is Dante and so are we all, endangered by the cruel and at times senseless conditions of human life, and it is this univocality that drives Dante’s compassion and shared humanity. Indeed, the repetition of the “c” drives home the emphasis on humanity of the Francesca episode by highlighting the sensorial qualities, rather than the abstract, of language, and the highly physical action of Dante’s falling body.

Together with Francesca, the figures of Pia de Tolomei and Piccarda Donati are often grouped together to form a trio of wronged women, or the “malmaritate”, the ill-married women victims of arranged marriage and domestic abuse as Diana Glenn highlights, whose compassionate treatment by Dante encourages a view that they are avatars of the human condition whose voyage through the heavens can be seen as a redemptive process. If Francesca is the first acknowledgement of the sin, reflected in the repetition of the word “amore” and her lack of real contrition for her sin seen in her eternal condition of nearness to Paolo albeit in the flames of hell, Pia is the penitent in purgatory whose main message is wrapped in remembrance “ricorditi di me” she says to Dante, while it is finally Pia, the blessed soul that inhabits paradise, who finally reflects contrition and salvation, with the word “carità” , as Ilaria Gallinaro points out, being repeated in her episode. Like Francesca, the details of Piccarda’s historical life are recounted in her monologue and form the necessary conditions for her use by Dante as a powerful figure of redemption. Like Francesca, Piccarda is the victim of circumstances beyond her control; a devoted nun, she is taken from the convent to be married, against her will, to Rossellino della Tosa, an advantageous marriage for the Donati family but a betrayal of her chosen path as a nun and wife of God. The placement of Piccarda’s canto, which Gallinaro also remarks on, is particularly poignant for Dante: placed as the third canto of Paradiso it seems to comment and aid the development of Dante’s own doubts of whether he is capable of describing to the reader the otherworldly landscape of paradise. As he notes in the first canto, he sees things in paradise that the human tongue is not capable of expressing, “e vidicose che ridire/ né sa né può chi di la su discende”, and asks Apollo, in the traditional invocation to the muse, to help him become, beyond being a “sommopoeta” in the Latin classical tradition, also the “sommo poeta” of Christianity, to conquer both “giogi”, both mountain peaks: “infino a qui l’un giogo di Parnaso/ assai mi fu; ma or con amendue/ m’è uopo intrar”. Placed in the context of Dante’s doubts, the episode with Piccarda and Piccarda’s narration of her history can be interpreted as the solace and comfort needed by Dante to continue his voyage and deed of recording his experiences in the beyond.

Like Francesca’s history, the details of Piccarda’s life are largely known because of Dante’s presentation of them in the Comedy and this practice, of taking minor figures from history to develop and challenge overarching narrative and ethical/philosophical questions, precisely captures the spirit of Ginzburgian micro-history. In the case of Piccarda, the details of her life story allow Dante to show how thorny and difficult to define, how inscrutable to humans, destiny and divine will is. As Inga Pierson in her article “Piccarda’s Weakness” explains, the violence done to Piccarda, forcing her to abandon her vows in order to form a politically advantageous marriage reveals to Dante, troubled by his own flawed humanity in the face of divine will and judgment, how little control humans have over their destiny. As Piccarda herself declares, the outcome of her life after being forced to renege her vows was ultimately in the hands of God, “iddio si sa qual poi mia vita fusse”. Only God himself can ultimately judge Piccarda, not even Beatrice, to whose judgment Dante will later refer to, a judge whose decisions are difficult, if not impossible, for human intelligence to comprehend because, unlike divine judgment, humans can only see part of history. Although located in the “spera piùtarda”, the slowest or less prestigious place in heaven reserved for those who did not remain constant to their vows, they are nevertheless blessed because humans must keep within God’s will, “dal voler di colui che qui ne cerne” and furthermore, that it is only God, ultimately, who can give the correct interpretation and value of human life, “quello sposo ch’ogne voto accetta/ che caritate a suo piacerconforma”. Caritas, as Piccarda explains, is the acceptance of our limits, the ability to accept the many turns and challenges presented by human life, it opens rather than closes doors, “la nostra carita non serra porte”. Pierson rightly quotes Hannah Arendt in her analysis of the Piccarda episode, noting that it illustrates the difference that Arendt makes between personal freedom and societal, or political freedom. A person such as Piccarda at the time would have lacked what Arendt terms as political freedom, and this lack immediately precludes any talk or expectation of a free will, thus Piccarda cannot have a true will or the strength to keep any vow because she herself has not been endowed with political freedom to have one. Only when one is capable of understanding the complete history, as God can, can one attempt to pass judgment on Piccarda’s presumed inconstancy and even then Piccarda can only be judged in two parts: on earth she broke her vows but in heaven she is eternally judged as having remained faithful. Seen in this perspective, it is not surprising that Dante presents Piccarda as the voice of resolution and comfort to his own ethical problems at the beginning of Paradiso, like Piccarda, he is also a flawed human, exiled by force from his native Florence, alienated because of his political beliefs, and questioning whether his humble beginnings in vernacular love poetry, more a source of shame than pride, can give birth to the monumental poetic task he has set himself. Like Piccarda, Dante comes to understand that the earthly judgement passed upon him, resulting in his being exiled from Florence, is ultimately transcended by the divine, eternal judgement whose “caritas”, the knowledge of the secret, internal decisions of each living creature and the acceptance that human life is rarely given the conditions to keep its original purity of purpose, redeems and ultimately changes the total meaning of each living creature’s life.

In the case of Piccarda and Francesca, the reader can thus see how Dante’s use of the micro-history of each woman allows for him to challenge the status quo and provide a critique of the prevailing societal conditions. In the last two examples of female micro-history, Matelda in Purgatorio and Cunizza in Paradiso, Dante continues this premise by choosing two female historical figures whose life choices and decisions countered and, particularly in the case of Matelda, changed the path of the accepted ruling forces of society. The exact identity of Dante’s Matelda has been the subject of previous critical discussion and it is a subject worthy of its own podcast and research, here I will simply concentrate on this personage as representing the figure of Matelda of Canossa. The masterful analysis by David Ruzicka on Matelda has revealed the many strong ties that the Matelda of Dante’s purgatory has to the historical context of Florentine politics, particularly the ties between Dante, a Guelph, and Matelda of Canossa, a Guelph figure head and party leader. That the Florentine political landscape, and Dante as a political exile, figures prominently in Dante’s thought is clear from the first canto of the Commedia, with the selva oscura seemingly a metaphor for the exiled condition, and through out the voyage through hell, where key figures of perceived injustices in Dante’s Florence are given their come-uppance, up to the famous speech by Cacciaguida in paradise where Florentine society is criticised. Interpreting Mateldaas Matelda of Canossa, as suggested by Ruzicka, enforces and aids the development of the theme of Florentine political history, for not only is Matelda a Guelph figurehead, she was also, as Ruzicka says, largely acknowledged as the principal figure in the development of the Florentine commune. Dante would have surely known of the stand-off between Matelda, who supported pope Gregory VII, and the emperor Henry IV, a sort of David and Goliath standoff with Mateldaperceived as the righteous warrior for justice against an unjust dictator, which culminated in the emperor pleading for pardon to the pope. This episode must have resonated deeply with Dante, an exiled Guelph, who had himself suffered in the flesh the perceived miscarriage of justice from the powers that be installed in Florence, a city Dante sees as being torn from its original path as a haven for justice and freedom. It is telling that the first sight of Matelda is marked by the theme of truth, seen in the river that separates Dante from where Matelda is first observed by him: “ed ecco più andar mi tolse un rio”. The river is described as incredibly pure and as incapable of hiding or concealing anything, “che nullanasconde”, with all the implications of honesty and truth, with nothing hidden. Ruzicka notes that the historiography associated to Matelda emphasizes the righteousness, sometimes to the detriment of her own political power, of her actions, including the accepting, albeit begrudgingly, of a self-governing Florence. According to Ruzicka, liberty, social and political, is associated by Dante to Matelda and it is thus not surprising that she is described as a young, graceful “bella donna”, alone “soletta” and with honest eyes “occhi onesti”, picking flowers, “scegliendo fior da fiore”, laughing and dancing “donna che balli”, in total freedom.

As Ruzicka notes, Dante’s use of history can perhaps be better described as “historiography”, a term that has many levels of meaning but in the case of Dante’s Comedy can be interpreted as interpretation of history. Certainly, Dante’s use of historical figures such as Matelda is often one that gives different values, emphasizes particular things over others, according to Dante’s needs, that, as Ruzicka says, “Dante saw nothing untoward in deciding the eschatological destiny of historical figures to suit his own purposes”. Thus, the portrayal of Mateldaemphasizes her connection to the formation of a free Florence and the importance of balance between state and religion, de-emphasizing her almost iron-like allegiance to the pope over and above any imperial power. Such a process can be seen as a creative approach to micro-history, taking a different view or perspective on historical events. This approach is mirrored in Dante’s portrayal of Cunizza, our final female historical figure in the Comedy. Like Francesca and Piccarda, the story of Cunizza is marked by the denouncement of the marriage of convenience, the marriage that Brenda Schildgeen notes as decried by Cacciaguida in Paradiso 15, “lamenting how dowry payments have escalated under the new mercantile economic system, and how they have adversely affected society, turning female children into bridal commodities”. As in the case of Francesca and Piccarda, Dante denounces a social structure that de-humanizes its citizens, turning them away from their chosen path and degenerating them into chattel. Schildgeen highlights Dante’s positive account of Cunizza, and his condemnation of her family’s practice of politically advantageous marriages. Ezzelino, Cunizza’s brother, is portrayed as a dictator, a catastrophe, an assault, upon his land, “una facella (firebrand according to Singleton’s translation) che fece a la contrada un grande assalto”, which has become depraved by his rule, “in quella parte de la terra prava”.

The historical details of Cunizza’s life, hinted at by Dante’s placement of her soul in the heaven of Venus where the souls who have committed sins of venereal love reside, read in a scandalous fashion: married against her will at least twice by her family’s scheming, she eloped twice with two different lovers, first with the troubadour Sordello, then with a knight called Bonio of Treviso. The details of Cunizza’s love life were apparently well known to Dante’s contemporaries and the presence of another troubadour, Folchetto of Marseilles, at the side of Cunizza in the heaven of Venus seems to give credence that Dante knew very well of her love affair with Sordello. Once again, Dante tells the historical events from Cunizza’sperspective, yielding surprising results, the most notable of these being Cunizza’srefusal to feel ashamed or in any way guilty for her love affairs. Her introduction to Dante is marked by acceptance and contentment, her language conciliatory and at peace with herself. Schildgeen highlights the word “indulgo”, pardon, in Cunizza’sspeech, suggesting that Dante wishes to call attention to, as in the case of Piccarda, the difference between human judgement, which is ultimately flawed and irrelevant, and divine judgement, which sees all and is able to judge on essential rather than circumstantial evidence, “Power to release from guilt emanates fromthe authority of the pope transmitted to ecclesiastical intermediaries. What is important here, actually in another example of Dante-

poet making the distinction between common human practice (even if through the conferred authority of the Church) and a higher authority (divine), is that in the otherworld, Cunizza no longer has need of the official earth-bound indulgence”. In Cunizza, as in Francesca, Piccarda and Matelda, Dante once again portrays an individual against the status quo, against the ruling societal structure. As described in Cunizza’s own words where her forgiveness is given to her by her own self, “a me medesma indulgo/la cagion di mia sorte”, it is ultimately not up to mere humans to pass judgement upon another, and Cunizza states this by saying that she knows this forgiveness will not be understood by the common crowd, the “vulgo”, “che parria forse forte al vostro vulgo”. In contrast to Francesca who has allowed herself to be de-humanized, twisted from her path of woman in love to sinner in hell, and unable to change her love for Paolo into a divine one, Cunizzaunderstands that pardon can only be achieved through self-acceptance and divine communion. This attitude is made clear by her comment regarding Folchetto, a man who has managed to come to terms with himself and thus has been able to renew earthly life through his heavenly life, “si ch’altra vita la prima relinqua”. Like Folchetto, who accepts his status as sinner and poet of earthly love, Cunizzarefuses to let her past bar her from accepting and entering paradise and knows that by accepting her earthly faults she enters into communion with the divine. As Folchetto notes, the world below is intrinsically linked to the one above, “ch’elmondo di su quel di giu torna” for what is there descend from what is above- to deny this connection, as Francesca did, is to destroy one’s connection to the divine and thus to be condemned to sin. Cunizza, like Piccarda, refuses to allow human ignorance and societal mores to twist her motives or her connection to the divine; although judged to be almost a lost woman or prostitute on earth, in heaven she is placed among the blessed because, according to Dante, her motives were never sinful, even if her actions were judged to be so by arbitrary, and at times unjust, societal laws.

​To conclude, I would like to draw attention to the words used by Cunizza to proclaim her innocence: “a me medesma indulgo”, I forgive myself. Cunizza’swords are remarkably similar to the ones spoken by Virgil when he judges Dante to be ready to continue on his journey alone: “per ch’io te sovra te corono e mitrio”, because I crown and mitre you over yourself. The image of achieving self-sufficiency and independence is clearly stated in both instances with Cunizzaemphasizing that it is herself only who has the authority to forgive herself while Virgil reminds Dante that he has reached personal independence, and perhaps artistic as well, by being able to crown himself. These images of independence are closely linked to the ability to achieve and control one’s own narrative, both instances also allude to a confluence of the spiritual and the physical. Both Dante and Cunizza have accepted, and thus transformed and progressed beyond, their physical, flawed condition- indeed it is precisely because of their flawed, human condition, that they are finally able to achieve the Aristotelian means of a balanced, independent life. No longer bound by the conventions of human society, they now live in the eternal state and their once alienated voices, now centered, have reached maturity and gained power precisely by relating their story, by presenting their cases through their own voices. Dante’s exiled voice is finally allowed centerstageby his very ability of being able to present it, to tell it, himself- this is ultimately the use of Dante’s historiography, his use of micro-history as a technique and as a form of ethical justice. The voice of the societal outcast, the misjudged, misunderstood, maligned or simply ignored is allowed to speak out, to denounce the injustices it has suffered and to remind us that it is ultimately up to us to forge our own destiny and path to justice and salvation- something which we can only achieve by speaking up and challenging the accepted and overarching narrative.

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