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| Dante Alighieri was a rising poet in Florence in the late 13th century before his politically motivated banishment gave rise to his astonishing Comedy (the word “Divine” was added to the title in the 1550s by an Italian printer). It is said Dante once spilled onto the ground a box of tools belonging to a blacksmith whom he heard singing one of Dante’s poems. When the incensed blacksmith demanded to know why Dante would spoil his trade, Dante explained that poetry was his trade, and the blacksmith was spoiling it by not singing his poems as he wrote them. |