Dante’s descendant wants poet pardoned

As Italy commemorates the 700th anniversary of the death of dante, one of his descendants is calling for him to be pardoned of the heinous crimes he was accused of several hundred years ago.

born into a noble family in Florence in 1265, dante Alighieri found himself on the wrong side of the bloody feud between the rival Guelph and Ghibelline factions.

He was accused of fraud, extortion, embezzlement and perjury. When he failed to turn up for trial, he was sentenced to be burned at the stake.

He fled into exile in 1302 and never saw Florence again. He settled in ravenna where he wrote much of his masterpiece, the divine Comedy, and died there in 1321.

Now, one of his descendants is exploring the possibility of the poet being granted a pardon.

“They were politically motivated trials and the exile and death penalties inflicted on my dear ancestor are unjust,” said Sperello di Serego Alighieri, an astrophysicist.

He and Alessandro Traversi, a law professor in Florence, are organizing a conference in May that will involve jurists, judges and historians, to discuss the feasibility of a pardon.