Between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, Dante

Taking as its starting point Marco Santagata's biography of Dante this article seeks to show how far Dante's philosophy and literary strategy were influenced by his special position in Florentine society, a man who was neither artistocratic nor wealthy, seeking to become part of the city's elite, and after expulsion seeking to regain his right to be part of the community. It suggests that the semantic underlying his thinking and in particular his decision to write in the vernacular is a semantic of belonging, where the supreme value is inclusion in a 'worthy' society.