Dante and His Journey

By Evan Schmid

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy in 1261. As a brilliant and well-respected Florentine, he entered politics. In 1301, after a political upheaval in Florence, Dante was unjustly banished from the city of his birth. Exiled for the rest of his life, Dante turned his poetic genius to writing a masterpiece of Italian poetry, The Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy endures as a great Christian drama about sin, redemption, and salvation. Reading this story can encourage us to follow in the footsteps of Dante, who responded to physical adversity by focusing his energy on the spiritual world and remaining true to the Faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Release date: Dec 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789125955

Evan Schmid

Br. Evan (Robert) Schmid, C.S.C. was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on July 17, 1920, one of five sons born to Alfred J. and Caroline (Nigl) Schmid. He attended Oshkosh Catholic elementary and high schools from 1926-1937, and in 1938 earned a diploma in secretarial skills from Oshkosh Business College. He entered the Brothers of Holy Cross at Watertown, Wisconsin in 1939. He began his novitiate year at Rolling Prairie, Indiana, in February 1940, pronouncing his temporary vows in 1941 and his perpetual vows in 1944. He studied at the University of Notre Dame from 1941-1944, graduating magna cum laude with an A.B. degree in English. After several summer sessions, he was awarded a master’s degree in 1952. Br. Evan worked at a number of schools in Wisconsin, Indiana and New York between 1944-1950, before he was hospitalized with tuberculosis in 1950 for two years. In 1952, Br. Evan was a member of the staff at the brothers’ residence, Columba Hall, Notre Dame, and that same year he taught briefly at Central Catholic High School, South Bend. In 1953, he again required a period of treatment in the infirmary, followed by a short appointment to the candidates’ program in Watertown, Wisconsin. He then returned to Notre Dame to serve on the staff of Columba Hall until he was once again assigned to Watertown, where from 1955-1958 he edited the Associate of St. Joseph magazine. From 1958-1974, he served as private secretary to the provincial superior at Notre Dame, and also taught on the faculty of Holy Cross Junior College at the Brothers Center at Notre Dame from 1974-1975. From 1975-1980, he once again worked exclusively as secretary to the provincial. He then became secretary to the headmaster at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Ohio until 2002, when his health required that he come to Notre Dame to take up residence at Columba Hall. He died on December 21, 2004, aged 84.

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Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

© Muriwai Books 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

DANTE AND HIS JOURNEY

In the Footsteps of the Saints

BY

BROTHER EVAN SCHMID, C.S.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

INTRODUCTION 4

DEDICATION 5

PART ONE: THROUGH LIFE 7

PART TWO: THROUGH HELL 21

PART THREE: THROUGH PURGATORY 30

PART FOUR: TO HEAVEN 39

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 48

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader,

The saints are the real heroes for today’s youth. They live out the life of Jesus in their own lives and serve as role models for young people today.

I would urge you to read as many of these biographies as you can and put their good example into practice in your own life. The saints are just ordinary people with extraordinary faith and love for God. We need many more present-day saints as lights and guides in our troubled world.

Enjoy the book! Try imitating the virtues of this holy man. You will be a better and happier person as a result.

Brother Roberto, C.S.C.

DEDICATION

DEDICATION

to

Viola, Arthur, and children

Publisher’s Dedication

To two of the families that have spent many hours making these books possible to reprint.

Wendy Demski

and

Wren and Douglas Spangler

May Our Lord and Our Lady bless you for your time and talent spent on this endeavor.

PART ONE: THROUGH LIFE

Propped on his elbows, Dante Alighieri crouched over the railing of the Ponte Vecchio to watch boats and barges glide past on the River Arno below. Huddled on the banks was the medieval town of Florence, its shops and houses circled by a protecting wall pierced with gates named after the saints. In those thirteenth century days many masons, sculptors, and painters wound their way over the bridges of Florence to seek work in the thriving town at the bend of the Arno.

As the church clocks struck late afternoon, Dante ran over the rough pavements toward home, darting from shadow to shadow of overhanging balconies, on past the fortress-like houses of the nobles, across the Piazza where stood the Baptistery in which the boy had been baptized, finally to his own house on a small square fronting the parish church.

Florentines constantly strove to beautify their town; its churches, palaces, paintings and sculptures were soon to attract the world. Young Dante listened eagerly whenever his father spoke of city affairs. He learned that the continual wars grew up from private quarrels between persons or families or towns; that Florentines cherished their liberty above everything else, and that its expanding trade made the city the hub of thirteenth-century commerce. In Florence, the merchants and craftsmen organized guilds to oversee trade and working conditions, and it was in the Guild of Notaries that Dante’s father Aldighiero drew up contracts and other documents for the Florentine citizenry.

The dominant political factions of the day were the Guelfs and the Ghibellines—the first supporting the pope, the other the Holy Roman Emperor. Good or ill fortune depends on allegiance to either party, said the boy’s father, depending on which holds mastery at any given time.

At first the city of Florence sympathized with the Guelfs, but during Dante’s boyhood about half its people championed the Ghibelline cause, which turned on Italy’s being ruled by the emperor instead of the pope.

The story of the Pistoja family gave young Dante a good notion of the violent times in which he lived. Rival branches developed in this powerful house, one nicknamed Bianchi or the Whites, the other Neri or the Blacks. Later on a son of the Bianci side was wounded in a duel with a Neri, but when the latter’s father sent the young man to apologize, the Bianci leaders chopped off the Neri lad’s right hand with a hatchet. Insults cannot be wiped out with mere words, they said.

As a result of this quarrel the Florentines further subdivided their loyalties. The city’s mayor or podesta as well as its council of magistrates belonged now to one faction, now to the other; the officials banishing their rivals as soon as they came to power.

As a boy, Dante often accompanied his father to the Palazzo Vecchio, the central square of Florence, where most of its business, lawmaking, and court sessions took place. There the boy filled many hours watching customers spend gold florins at the shops after much shrill-voiced bargaining.

As his birth in May of 1265 the boy’s parents named him Durante, the enduring one, an unknowing prophesy of Dante Alighieri’s continuing fame. The shortened form of Durante meant the giver, another unconscious token of the incomparable gift Dante was to bestow on succeeding centuries.

The house of the Alighieri stood in the San Piero quarter of Florence near homes of the Portinari and Donati. The family was comfortably well off but not rich. Early in life, Dante learned of his ancestor Cacciaguida, a Florentine warrior of two hundred years past to whom the Alighieri clan traced its origins.

Life in the medieval city had many excitements for a growing boy. On the many feast-days there were always games and contests to attend, and when the townspeople celebrated the day of the city’s patron, Saint John Baptist, there were horse races in the streets, wrestling matches on the squares, and other hardy feats of strength and skill.

When he reached nine years of age, Dante Alighieri met the person who would profoundly influence his entire lifetime. At a birthday party in the Portinari house he saw a little girl about his own age. Her name was Beatrice, her dress was red. Recalling this significant moment later in life, Dante said, "At that instant something deep in my soul began to tremble, and my pulse