Children were cycling across the pietra serena slabs and locals were tucking into panini in piazza Santa Croce as I perched on a bench beneath Dante Alighieri’s stony stare. Ravenna-born sculptor Enrico Pazzi donated the statue to Florence in 1865 to mark the 600th anniversary of the poet’s birth. Dante stands protectively above our heads, gripping his robes close, with an eagle by his side and four heraldic lions guarding each corner of the pedestal. Seven hundred years on from Dante Alighieri’s death and in the grip of a pandemic that has shifted the axis of our world, we can empathize with the sculpture’s gaze and the poet’s predicament, exiled as many of us are from the places and people we hold dear.
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