Grateful for Dante
How the Great-Souled Tuscan Saved My Life
On a warm October day in Ravenna, the ancient Roman imperial capital on the Adriatic, I walked down a street that runs by the Franciscan basilica and dead-ends at a small neoclassical monument topped with a dome. This is the Tomb of Dante, erected in the city where the fourteenth-century poet spent the final years of his life, and died. I entered the shaded portico quietly and stood to the side, waiting for German tourists to finish their inspection of the sarcophagus. Then, alone at the grave of the man whom God had used to deliver me from my own dark wood, I fell to my knees and prostrated myself in gratitude.
This is not the kind of place a middle-aged man from a small Louisiana town finds himself, nor is making a full prostration the normal thing that Dante admirers do at his tomb. But I needed to do this as an act of pietas. The wandering Tuscan had saved my life. He saved me from what the Welsh call hiraeth, defined as "homesickness for a home to which you cannot return; the nostalgia, the years, the grief for the lost places of your past."
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Rod Dreher is a contributing editor to Touchstone. He is a writer and blogger and the author of several books, including The Benedict Option (2017) and Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (2020).
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on literature from the online archives
24.1—January/February 2011
Ruminations on the Monstrous Envy of the Soul-Devouring State by Anthony Esolen
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
on Costly Grace in Breece D'J Pancake's Flyover Country by Casey Chalk
more from the online archives
37.5—Sept/Oct 2024
Why Law Schools Can't Teach Law
A sidebar to How Law Lost Its Way by Adam MacLeod
14.6—July/August 2001
Three Bad Ideas for Women & What to Do About Them by Frederica Mathewes-Green
20.6—July/August 2007
The Beowulf Poet Was a Shrewd Christian Apologist by Douglas Wilson
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
