Insights

There are two main things that can be gleaned from what has been presented before. Those are the locals in which this copy of La Commedia most likely appeared and the opinion of the Catholic Church on books about the workings of their belief system.

First off, it is possible to make some theories on where and when this book has appeared in history, some being more likely than others. For example, it is possible that this book was present during the “bonfire of the vanities” due to the evidence of possible interaction with fire. However, there is not much credence to this theory as if it was present during that time, it most likely would have been burned with the rest of them because it is unlikely that Savonarola would let a book lie just on the edge of the flames and not simply throw it back onto the blaze. A more plausible theory is that this book was present during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions or the publishing of the Spanish Index of 1612. This is more possible than the previous theory because, in these acts of censoring, the books did not get destroyed. The books simply had a few lines censored, like the lines censored in the book at the Fisher Library. This theory cannot be confirmed true because there could have been local censoring for different cities and towns that we haven’t heard of and since the poem is written in Italian, personally it is impossible to know if the places marked as censored in the previous part are those that were outlined in the indexes.

Finally, it is possible to make some assumptions about how the Catholic Church handled the dissemination of works that could be construed as against it. With the exception of Savonarola’s burning of the books, as he was excommunicated by the Church¹, both occasions of censorship occurred off of home soil for the Catholic Church.² One happened during an Inquisition and the other happened in Spain. The important part to note is that like stated before “the work was never banned in Italy”.³ This gives the implication that the Church does not care as much about the people it already has definitively with it reading about the thoughts of people about the Church. However, it has a higher opinion about peoples it conquers (with the Inquisitions) thoughts towards it so they can be encouraged into converting. This means that they want to cull any non-flattering opinions about themselves outside of the people who already fully trust in them. It is somewhat odd for the Church to do such a thing as Dante is quoted to have said this on the topic of religious censorship: “But I take courage from the words of Daniel … assuring us that the defenders of the truth are shielded by divine power”.⁴

In any case, this book was so easily censored due to the format of distributing knowledge at that time. The fact that not many manuscripts could be made because they were costly and time-consuming to make made disseminating knowledge harder and gathering all of the copies of a book easier. In today’s modern age, there is still the classic book but there is also the internet which makes sure that whatever is posted on it lives forever somewhere within the web. This means that in our day and age, there is no more way to simply sensor out the information of a text completely, as there is always a copy of it somewhere that is uncensored. We have turned instead of banning books from specific locals, whether that be schools, states, or complete countries. This can be related to Alan Liu’s description of the overlapping of media:

“New media are old; and old media new. When new media is understood to be fully embedded in history rather than (as when it is facilely said that the internet makes books obsolete) post-historical, then it appears to be trickily both before and after its time, both (to borrow from Peter Krapp's analysis) avant la lettre and déjá vu.”⁵

This is what is happening with the banning of books today. It is eerily similar to how it was done in the past, putting out lists about what books are not allowed in the area decided and punishments for those who do not comply.

In conclusion, it is almost impossible to know anything for certain about the medieval world and what has happened during it, with the exceptions of long-lasting monuments that have stood the test of time. Otherwise, we are left with fragments and biased accounts from the manuscripts and other writings that have luckily survived. This means that everything posited here could be true, it could all be completely wrong, or it could even have nuggets of truth. However, we are never going to know and have to use the facts that we have to glean anything, and thank luck that some of the books that were meant to be destroyed were not, though most were. We must also be aware of the cycle of history as those who do not run the risk of repeating the bad things that happen in said history.

¹Bald 71-2
²Carefoote 73 & Haight 8
³ Carefoote 73
⁴Bald 425
⁵A Companion to Digital Literary Studies (