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Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

theguardian.com

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Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#101

Post by unixhero »

athriren wrote: post #87
delecti wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I asked though. I'm not asking whether or not Dante should have his conviction overturned. Though on that note, I'm not convinced it should be, because it seems his crimes were for actual corruption while in public office, and waging war against the government. But no, I'm pointing out that it seems like his conviction was already overturned, so what exactly is the complaint?

i love this kind of chutzpah. 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 st…

You write beautifully, yet with too long sentences :).

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#102

Post by bloak »

WalterBright wrote: post #27

1302 to today, that's 36 generations. 2 to the 36th means his descendants today have 1 / 70,000,000,000 of his genetic contribution. I'd say they don't have legal standing.

It's fun to do the DNA calculations, but the article says "can be proposed by an heir of the convict", so it's probably not really about genetics.

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#103

Post by gattilorenz »

notorandit wrote: post #100
blue1 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Italian national identity is rather weak compared to other European nations. Metternich famously quipped that “‘Italy’ is a geographic expression”, and it is still true today to some extent.

Just like Austria was. Just a geographic expression that acquired some political meaning at a certain point in time. 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 use…

> 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.

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

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#104

Post by cabalamat »

orblivion wrote: post #35
delecti wrote: post #18

Is this necessary? This article from 2008 seems to indicate that his sentence had been rescinded. 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.

I mean they did this: https://apnews.com/article/9b6f6f5ba5be2408ff0502c7fb8abd5b Seems silly. Should they overturn Jesus' conviction too? At a certain point the conviction is part of their story.

I don't think there's a legal successor state to the Roman Empire. Also the paperwork for that conviction has been lost.

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#105

Post by msh »

glitchc wrote: post #79
x86ARMsRace wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This causes some interesting questions about continuity of accountability for governments. I wonder how long you can hold a government accountable for the actions of its previous administrations. How many years can you go back? How many iterations of a state can you hold accountable too?

If we had a statute of limitations like this, treaties with other countries would cease to hold all meaning. 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.

But when is the country the same as made the treaty? Given time all countries change government structures and landmass quite heavily.

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?

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#106

Post by mFixman »

WalterBright wrote: post #27

1302 to today, that's 36 generations. 2 to the 36th means his descendants today have 1 / 70,000,000,000 of his genetic contribution. I'd say they don't have legal standing.

Legal standing is uncorrelated to genetics.

An adopted child has 0% of the genetics of their father, and they are still legally their descendant.

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#107

Post by feintruled »

Apocryphon wrote: post #72
Bayart wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Italy has a lot of historical continuity. It doesn't. Italy was one of the most ravaged parts of the Western Roman Empire, it has less historical continuity than Spain or France. Only Britain does worse. >If you go to Rome, the manhole covers read SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus). That's propaganda. The link between the Roman state and Italy was something pushed by the fascists and it stayed behind in the popular m…

> Italy was one of the most ravaged parts of the Western Roman Empire, it has less historical continuity than Spain or France. Only Britain does worse. Well, Erdogan would probably be okay with pardoning Dante.

> Well, Erdogan would probably be okay with pardoning Dante.

Dante had the prophet Mohammed resident in the final circles of hell, so I suspect he might not be.

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#108

Post by ginko »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #44
clcuc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate? You're talking about the Y of the XY chromosomes?

If Dante’s son had a son who had a son x 36, the Y chromosome would not have changed much

Assuming all those 36 sons were actually children of their legal fathers.

Re: Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption conviction

#110

Post by Grustaf »

athriren wrote: post #87
delecti wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I asked though. I'm not asking whether or not Dante should have his conviction overturned. Though on that note, I'm not convinced it should be, because it seems his crimes were for actual corruption while in public office, and waging war against the government. But no, I'm pointing out that it seems like his conviction was already overturned, so what exactly is the complaint?

i love this kind of chutzpah. 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 st…

Wasn't the claim that Dante committed actual crimes of corruption, not just thought crime? Or did I misunderstand the post you're replying to?
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