I firmly expect to get mugged by Shakespeare and Dante scholars alike.
The Dante folk will take issue with several of my choices. His movements prior to his arrival in (or return to, as it certainly was) Verona are much debated, and I’ve chosen one of the more contentious routes, having him go to France to teach at the University of Paris. Attested to by Villani and Boccachio, it was a good excuse to have Pietro witness the final humiliation of the Knights Templar. I did refrain from having the infernal poet cross the Channel, as some allege he did, to spend time in London and Oxford. Tempting as it was, my heresy knows some bounds.
Perhaps my greatest sin, though, is the facial hair. I have Dante growing a long black beard. It’s something his contemporaries say he had, but that modern scholars vehemently deny. Their reason? Because, they correctly point out, all of the poet’s portraits show him clean shaven. But I think I’ve explained away the beard/no beard thing very well. Dante was enamored of Roman poets, most especially Virgil. In his own opinion he was following in their footsteps. Wouldn’t he wish to be portrayed like them, clean shaven? Wouldn’t he take it to the extreme and shave whenever his portrait was drawn? I think so.
But Dante also had a flair for the dramatic. Exiled from Florence, wandering for years between homes, I think he decided to look the part. Hence, he grew a beard.
My other transgression is that I spell his name wrong. Alighieri is the Florentine spelling of the name. But after he was exiled, I wondered, why would he use their spelling? I have him returning to an earlier variation of the name, and Pietro, ever the obedient son, does likewise. I am always one for flouting expectations, and in this case I find I’m in good company. Dante himself uses this spelling in his Epistle to Cangrande – specifically, Dantes Alagherii. Of course, there is debate whether Dante himself wrote it. And on and on…
The historical Pietro is something of an enigma. We know whom he married and when, the names of his children, and where he’s buried. I learned on my second trip to Verona that Pietro bought a vineyard not far from Verona when he was in his fifties (I know this because my wife and I were invited to visit the estate by Pietro’s descendant, Count Serego-Aligheri). And we know that Pietro wrote a commentary on his father’s work. Oh, and he was excommunicated briefly in the 1320s. But other than that? Not much. So I have taken that frame and given him a life that might well be seen as ludicrous by the Dante set. All I can say in my own defence is, Dante would have done it. So would Shakespeare. They both loved a good story.
But for all that I’m going to piss off the Dante brethren, my treatment of Shakespeare may well be worse. I’m not messing with the man, they’re used to that. I’m screwing around with his work.
To the lovers of the Bard, I say this – all my initial ideas came straight from Shakespeare’s text. I never work to correct him, as other authors have done (quite well, in some cases). Unlike the historical Macbeth and Richard III, Juliet and Romeo were not real people in need of defense.
Besides, Shakespeare was something of a thief himself. He stole plots right and left – including the story of Romeo & Juliet! His talent was in taking old stories and breathing new life into them. In a way, I feel I am honoring the Bard by following in his thieving foot-steps.
Please don’t hurt me.
