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Lingering in Limbo: Dante’s Inferno
Limbo, it turns out, isn’t so bad, even if is found in the first level of Dante Alighieri’s hell. As Dante’s allegory of the journey of the soul continues, it will take him to a beautiful castle inhabited by the good and the great. Far from suffering the tortures of hell, although they can never leave, they are surrounded by meadows and hang out in erudite splendour. But before Dante gets there he has more adventures. Beatrice sends Virgil to the Rescue The ghost of Virgil, a long dead Roman poet, has shown up just in time to take on the job as Dante’s guide. But what’s in it for…
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Forgotten crimes and the sack of Rome
The sack of Rome in 410 AD hastened the emergence of a new post-Roman world and eventually, over the course of fifteen centuries, the birth of the country we now call Italy. The tale that has come through to our time of that sacking is one of uncivilised pagan German tribes – outsiders – tragically tearing down the centre of western civilization. This caricature is inaccurate in many ways. As is often the case, the real story is more complicated. In echoes of our own time, it is a tale of political intrigues and racial divisions. The Roman world at the end of the fourth century was a different place…
