Context

To begin with, Dante wrote La Commedia which was split into three parts. The first part, Inferno, is said to have been finished between 1314 and 1319, the second part, Purgatorio, was completed sometime before 1319, and the last part, Paradiso, was said to have been completed sometime between 1316 and 1321.¹ This would mean that Dante had written this work while in exile from Florence (1302-1321²). He had been exiled for the sole reason of being part of the wrong political party when Florence was taken over by the opposing one, and dissenters exiled with it being said that they were “to be burned alive if they ever be caught”.³ For their troubles, Dante ended up putting many of his enemies from the opposing political party and who he believed were corrupt religious figures into his vision of Hell.⁴ Even with that the book was never banned or censored in Italy.⁵ It was, however, banned or censored three other times in the medieval ages.

The first was when Savonarola, an excommunicated christian friar, sent bands of children to collect copies of not only Dante’s works but also Ovid and Boccaccio and had them burned in “the bonfire of the vanities” during the year 1497.⁶ After having had a difficult relationship with Pope Alexander VI, Savonarola was not allowed to preach, was able to again and then was finally excommunicated on May 13th 1497.⁷ According to Bald, “In response to his excommunication, Savonarola published ‘Epistle against Surreptitious Excommunication’ addressed to ‘all Christians and believers of God,’ in which he claimed the pope’s excommunication was based on false insinuations devised by his enemies and thus had no value in the eyes of God or the Church”.⁸ Savonarola gathered and burned those texts, as well as other frivolities like paintings, makeup, and toys, because he believed that there should be “...laws against ‘all those things which are pernicious to the soul’s health”.⁹ This just proves that Savonarola was not the smartest, nor was he the most well-adjusted individual in medieval times.

The second time the book was censored in some way was when it was placed into the Lisbon 1581 Index under Class II¹⁰ and the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions prohibited the book until all of the copies were brought for expurgation.¹¹ The Index came when Philip II became the ruler of Portugal and the Inquisitor-General at the time, Dalmeida, issued a reprint for the old Index of Trent with the total number of title within the book being 160.¹²