Dante's statue in Piazza Santa Croce
Next to the entrance to the Basilica of Santa Croce, stands the monument to Dante Alighieri, made in 1865 on the occasion of the celebrations for the six hundredth anniversary of Dante, in the first year of Florence as Capital.
Enrico Pazzi, a sculptor from Emilia, was called to make the statue and exceptional personalities took on the financial burden of the project created to symbolize "the atonement for the exile given to the poet": Giuseppe Verdi, Giosuè Carducci, Alessandro Manzoni and Bettino Ricasoli.
The base was instead financed entirely by the Municipality of Florence and created according to a design by Emilio de Fabris in collaboration with the architect Luigi del Sarto.
The statue had to be placed in a public square, so the choice fell on Piazza Santa Croce due to the presence of the basilica, defined as the "Pantheon of Italian glories", since it contains the tombs of illustrious figures including Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Ghiberti, Galileo, Alfieri, Foscolo and Rossini.
The monument was placed in the center of the square on May 14, 1865, and was inaugurated in the presence of King Vittorio Emanuele II and a large crowd of citizens.
The white marble sculpture depicts a Dante with an aggravated expression, severely judging Italy's servile attitude towards foreign domination. On his head he wears a laurel crown, an ornament given to poets by the ancients, in his hand he holds his Comedy, later defined as "Divine" by Boccaccio and at his feet we find an eagle, symbol of Justice and animal that Dante mentions several times in his work.
In 1964, the square was used as a parking lot, arousing much criticism. That led to the hypothesis of a transfer being considered even then, but this occurred a couple of years later, after the monument suffered several damages due to the flood of 1966. It was then removed and reassembled in its current position in 1971.
The repositioning of the statue also allowed the square to be used again for the traditional Calcio Storico Fiorentino in the month of June.
The statue of Dante is now a monument much loved by the Florentines, often used as a meeting point in the square for people who go out in the evening in this area and for groups of tourists, given that the entrance to the basilica is located right behind it.
