Museo Casa di Dante

We went down our list of what we haven’t seen yet, we spun the wheel, and Museo Casa di Dante came up the winner for today. It is located in the heart of the city. We’ve walked by it a dozen times but never went in. As a reminder, Dante Alighieri (or Dante to his friends, like us) wrote the “Divine Comedy” and is considered “the father of the Italian language”. (I hope he wasn’t rolling around in his grave when we were trying to pronounce our Italian during the visit.)

I went in thinking this would be all about the life of Dante as in this is a picture of Dante, this is the comb he combed his hair with, this was his hat, here’s his favorite dog stuffed, etc. But it is something quite different; it’s really a museum about what Florence was like during Dante’s time and how he came to be there, and be exiled from Florence. If you take the time to read the good explanations (in Italian and English) you can learn about the fighting between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the pope and the empire, and what this has to do with anything. We certainly didn’t know that much about this before going in. We spent about an hour and a half there, but that is on the upper end of most visitors because we stopped and read everything. It’s a cerebral museum visit. For the folks looking for something flashy, this museum may not appeal that much.

Ghibellini e Guelfi

Case Torri


Firenze al Tempo di Dante