I read the Inferno partly because Sabina referenced it when she was here last spring, in the context of a deplorable family of payday lenders, IIRC. (Not sure I do- was comjng down with a sinus infection at the time and details are hazy.) It would never occur to me to associate modern day loan sharks with those guys sitting in the rain of fire, but hell, why not?
But also, at this very moment G is in Dante's Florence, as I was almost 40 years ago, and so there feels a connection that way as well. Mind, now I've read some background to the ever-pestiferous Guelphs and Ghibellines, I'm content to leave Dante's Florence to its own devices and move on to happier times under the early Medici. One feels that Florence must have been hell to live in during those centuries, but the resulting art was worth it.
