As I write this email, I am on a train hurtling down the track headed to Florence. I am making the trek that The Poet Dante always longed to make. He longed for Florence to call him back, to renounce its trumped up charges against him, and to recognize him as its son. Dante never made the trip. He died in exile always longing for Florence…never going home. Tonight, our hotel will be about 300 meters from the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (who is the patron saint of Florence—or the second patron after Florentine Christians dumped the god Mars for the fiery forerunner of Christ). That building was Dante’s final aim. Florentines took their great poets to the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Florentines maintain that the Baptistery was built on the foundation of the ancient temple of Mars) and there crowned them with a simple laurel wreath. They were recognizing that the Holy Spirit who is symbolically given in baptism was working through and in the poet that they crowned. Dante is often pictured wearing the laurel crown. He never received it, however. He died far from home, rejected by his community, longing for their recognition, and never receiving it. They, now, of course, embrace him fully. They crown him daily. Too late say I. (more…)