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Italy – 700th Anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri
1965 Silver 500 Lire 29.3mm (11.04 grams) 0.835 Silver (0.2953 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 100
REPVBBLICA ITALIANA SCULT G• VERGINELLI INC•G•MONASSI, Head of Poet Dante Alighieri facing left, on his head a lauerel crown.
R L. 500 1965, Flames surmounted by clouds and sun rays with 10 little stars within; allegorical symbols of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise (the three books of the trilogy of the Divine Commedy, a masterpiece of world literature). In exergue indication of the value, under which lies the date. Right of the flames the mint mark.
Edge Lettering: 7°CENTENARIO DELLA NASCITA DI DANTE
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 Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri (Italian: [duˈrante deʎʎ aliˈɡjɛːri]; Latin: Dantes), commonly known by his pen name Dante Alighieri or simply as Dante (/ˈdɑːnteɪ, ˈdænteɪ, ˈdænti/, also US: /ˈdɑːnti/, Italian: [ˈdante]; c. 1265 – 1321), was an Italian poet during the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered the most important poem of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
In the late Middle Ages, most poetry was written in Latin, making it accessible only to the most educated readers. In De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular), however, Dante defended the use of the vernacular in literature. He would even write in the Tuscan dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and the Divine Comedy; this highly unorthodox choice set a precedent that important later Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would follow.
Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy, and his depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art. He is cited as an influence on John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him. In Italy, he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta (“the Supreme Poet”) and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called “the three fountains” or “the three crowns”.
The Divine Comedy describes Dante’s journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso); he is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice, the subject of his love (and of another of his works, La Vita Nuova). Of the books, Purgatorio is arguably the most lyrical of the three, referring to more contemporary poets and artists than Inferno; Paradiso is the most heavily theological, and the one in which, many scholars have argued, the Divine Comedy’s most beautiful and mystic passages appear (e.g., when Dante looks into the face of God: “all’alta fantasia qui mancò possa”-“at this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe,” Paradiso, XXXIII, 142).
With its seriousness of purpose, its literary stature and the range-both stylistic and thematic-of its content, the Comedy soon became a cornerstone in the evolution of Italian as an established literary language. Dante was more aware than most early Italian writers of the variety of Italian dialects and of the need to create a literature and a unified literary language beyond the limits of Latin writing at the time; in that sense, he is a forerunner of the Renaissance, with its effort to create vernacular literature in competition with earlier classical writers. Dante’s in-depth knowledge (within the limits of his time) of Roman antiquity, and his evident admiration for some aspects of pagan Rome, also point forward to the 15th century. Ironically, while he was widely honored in the centuries after his death, the Comedy slipped out of fashion among men of letters: too medieval, too rough and tragic, and not stylistically refined in the respects that the high and late Renaissance came to demand of literature.
He wrote the Comedy in a language he called “Italian”, in some sense an amalgamated literary language mostly based on the regional dialect of Tuscany, but with some elements of Latin and other regional dialects. He deliberately aimed to reach a readership throughout Italy including laymen, clergymen and other poets. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression. In French, Italian is sometimes nicknamed la langue de Dante. Publishing in the vernacular language marked Dante as one of the first in Roman Catholic Western Europe (among others such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio) to break free from standards of publishing in only Latin (the language of liturgy, history and scholarship in general, but often also of lyric poetry). This break set a precedent and allowed more literature to be published for a wider audience, setting the stage for greater levels of literacy in the future. However, unlike Boccaccio, Milton or Ariosto, Dante did not really become an author read all over Europe until the Romantic era. To the Romantics, Dante, like Homer and Shakespeare, was a prime example of the “original genius” who sets his own rules, creates persons of overpowering stature and depth, and goes far beyond any imitation of the patterns of earlier masters; and who, in turn, cannot truly be imitated. Throughout the 19th century, Dante’s reputation grew and solidified; and by 1865, the 600th anniversary of his birth, he had become established as one of the greatest literary icons of the Western world.
New readers often wonder how such a serious work may be called a “comedy”. In the classical sense the word comedy refers to works which reflect belief in an ordered universe, in which events tend toward not only a happy or amusing ending but one influenced by a Providential will that orders all things to an ultimate good. By this meaning of the word, as Dante himself wrote in a letter to Cangrande I della Scala, the progression of the pilgrimage from Hell to Paradise is the paradigmatic expression of comedy, since the work begins with the pilgrim’s moral confusion and ends with the vision of God.
Dante’s other works include Convivio (“The Banquet”), a collection of his longest poems with an (unfinished) allegorical commentary; De Monarchia, a summary treatise of political philosophy in Latin which was condemned and burned after Dante’s death by the Papal Legate Bertrando del Poggetto, which argues for the necessity of a universal or global monarchy in order to establish universal peace in this life, and this monarchy’s relationship to the Roman Catholic Church as guide to eternal peace; De vulgari eloquentia (“On the Eloquence of Vernacular”), on vernacular literature, partly inspired by the Razos de trobar of Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun; and La Vita Nuova (“The New Life”), the story of his love for Beatrice Portinari, who also served as the ultimate symbol of salvation in the Comedy. The Vita Nuova contains many of Dante’s love poems in Tuscan, which was not unprecedented; the vernacular had been regularly used for lyric works before, during all the thirteenth century. However, Dante’s commentary on his own work is also in the vernacular-both in the Vita Nuova and in the Convivio-instead of the Latin that was almost universally used.
 Italy, officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and has a largely temperate climate; due to its shape, it is often referred to in Italy as lo Stivale (the Boot). With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 4th most populous EU member state. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino and Vatican City.
 Since ancient times, Greek, Etruscan, Celtic, and other cultures have thrived on the Italian Peninsula. Rome ultimately emerged as the dominant power, conquering much of the ancient world and becoming the leading cultural, political, and religious centre of Western civilisation. During the Dark Ages, the region suffered sociopolitical collapse amid calamitous barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous Italian city-states rose to great prosperity through shipping, commerce and banking, and even laid the groundwork for capitalism. The Renaissance led to a flourishing of Italian culture, producing famous scholars, artists, and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Nevertheless, Italy remained politically fragmented and fell prey to European powers such as France, Spain, and later Austria, subsequently entering a long period of decline that lasted until the mid-19th century.
 After various unsuccessful attempts, the second and the third wars for Italian independence resulted in the eventual unification of most of present-day Italy by 1866. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the new Kingdom of Italy rapidly industrialised and acquired a colonial empire, becoming a great power. However, southern and rural areas of the country remained largely excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading the way to the rise of a Fascist dictatorship in 1922. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and civil war. In the years that followed, Italy abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, and enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, thus becoming one of the world’s most developed nations.
Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and the eighth largest economy in the world. It has a very high level of human development and enjoys the highest life expectancy in the EU. Italy plays a prominent role in global military, cultural and diplomatic affairs and is also considered to be a major regional power in Europe. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7/G8, G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, and many more. As a reflection of its vast cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is one of the most visited countries.
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