![]() ![]() Documentary sources reveal that she was a committed philanthropist: With her husband, she founded a hospice for the poor on the Via Francigena, a pilgrimage route to Rome. The portrayal of Sapia in the “Divine Comedy” is imbued with political implications, many of which boil down to the fact that Dante blamed the violence of his time on those who turned against their communities out of arrogance and greed.īut the real Sapia was even more interesting than Dante would have you believe. According to Dante and medieval theologians, she had fallen prey to one of the seven capital vices, “ invidia,” or envy. Despite their advantage, the Sienese were slaughtered – including Sapia’s nephew, whose head was paraded around Siena on a pike. She tells the two how her fate in the afterlife was sealed – how she stood at the window of her family’s castle and, with troops gathering in the distance, prayed for her own city, Siena, to fall. Sapia meets Dante and his first guide, Virgil, on the second terrace of purgatory. One of them is a woman named Sapia Salvani. ![]() There, he encounters a variety of characters, many of whom are based on real people Dante had met or heard of during his life. ![]() The “Divine Comedy” follows the journey of a pilgrim across the three realms of the Christian afterlife – hell, purgatory and paradise. ![]() 14, 1321, he had just put his final flourishes on the “ Divine Comedy,” a monumental poem that would inspire readers for centuries. When Dante Alighieri died 700 years ago, on Sept. ![]()
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