ABSTRACT
Dante Alighieri was politically divided in sympathy between different parties which were dominant within twelfth- and thirteenth-century Italy: the Ghibellines, and the Guelphs. Dante as poet was in advance of Dante as thinker. Giambattista Vico, Francesco de Sanctis and Benedetto Croce form an important tradition for Italian readings of Dante, but in contrast to Croce, the Italian historian of ideas Bruno Nardi in an essay called ‘Dante Profeta’ insisted that the poem was vision, that Dante saw himself as a prophet to Italy, and that the poem was political. Dante’s example for interpretation in the Epistle is the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt in the Book of Exodus. The Biblical quotation commenting on the escape of the Israelites from bondage appears specifically in Purgatorio 2, 46, when it is sung by the ship of souls arriving at the foot of the mountain of Purgatory.
