Whether you want to know what all the Dante plaques and markers are telling you, or you’re simply curious about what the city was like at the dawn of the Renaissance, this is the app for you.
All the city’s Dante plaques (originals, additions and even the ones no longer there) have been transcribed, translated and explained with reference to the Divine Comedy. Numerous locations (Dante’s statues, portraits, towers, palaces, churches, neighborhoods, ancient city walls and more) have been studied, analyzed, catalogued and comprehensively explained. Historical coats of arms have also been recreated so that you can recognize them as you stroll through the city.
Did you know, for example, that two of Orsanmichele’s columns are hollow and were used to move grain down to the ground floor? Did you know that you can still find a famous rock, called Dante’s Stone, where nineteenth-century travelers, including Mark Twain and Wordsworth, once paid homage to the great poet? Have you seen the oldest fresco of Dante? It’s in a restaurant, but they’ll let you in to see it even if you don’t eat there. What about Berta? That’s what they call the stone sculpture of a woman sticking out of the wall of Santa Maria Maggiore. While you’re there, you can go inside to admire what’s left of the tomb of Brunetto Latini, Dante’s teacher and famous medieval sodomite. With this app, you can find all these things and many more.
The user interface has been streamlined to be intuitive and responsive. You can select any of its approximately one hundred points of interest either from the menus or the two interactive maps. Each document was written by professional medievalists who put what you’re seeing into historical context. The fruit of our archival research and years of study is presented in a witty and fun style that teaches while it entertains.