[HN Gopher] Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 cor...
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Dante's descendant seeks to overturn poet's 1302 corruption
conviction
Author : blegh
Score : 47 points
Date : 2021-02-02 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Is that in case he's still stuck somewhere in the purgatory with
| potential last minute changes to his itinerary?
| spoonjim wrote:
| Can a government today even issue a pardon for crimes alleged by
| a government of 1302? It's not even the same institution.
| dash2 wrote:
| Are you sure? Italy has a lot of historical continuity. If you
| go to Rome, the manhole covers read SPQR (Senatus Populusque
| Romanus). IIRC the government of Florence still works from the
| buildings of the Uffizi.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| There are manhole covers in Copenhagen that make reference to
| H.C. Andersen but he didn't actually have anything to do with
| them, it was more in the form of a thing to make tourists
| feel they were somewhere cool.
|
| I might accept some continuity from now back to the time of
| Garibaldi for Italy as a whole (but then we have to write
| some notable periods off as aberrations) - As for Florence I
| would accept going back to Napoleonic times but from there
| the continuity of government was surely broken.
| labster wrote:
| I was disappointed to learn the title of pontifex maximus
| wasn't continuous from the Roman era. I mean, if we need an
| intercalary month, I can't think of anyone better than Pope
| Francis to decide that.
| mongol wrote:
| What is an intercalary month and why might we need one?
| Grustaf wrote:
| The church is continuous from the Roman era though. Both in
| the East and the West.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It is a different government since the start of a government is
| marked by the adoption of its constitution.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Symbolically, sure. Not like it makes any practical difference.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Symbolically, sure. Not like it makes any practical
| difference._
|
| It's a risky precedent. Pardoning and convicting dead people
| makes for great political theatre. You can get your side
| riled up and energized over something with zero practical
| effect. It's easy politicking. That creates a perverse
| incentive for leaders to focus on the distracting and useless
| over the difficult but important.
| delecti wrote:
| Is this necessary? This article from 2008 seems to indicate that
| his sentence had been rescinded.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20111230060902/http://www.telegr...
|
| Also, it looks like he was convicted under the Holy Roman Empire,
| which doesn't really exist anymore. I'm not sure who there is to
| overturn his conviction.
| orblivion wrote:
| I mean they did this:
| https://apnews.com/article/9b6f6f5ba5be2408ff0502c7fb8abd5b
|
| Seems silly. Should they overturn Jesus' conviction too? At a
| certain point the conviction is part of their story.
| barrucadu wrote:
| What's the point in pardoning dead people?
| leetcrew wrote:
| even if it's only the for the satisfaction of a few people who
| care, why not? it's not expensive to pardon dead people, and it
| has few practical consequences.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Its easier to fight past injustice then current injustice..
| edmundsauto wrote:
| To correct the record, and to serve the general idea that
| justice can get it right, eventually. Impact wise, it probably
| makes the family feel better.
| mongol wrote:
| Time to call Pontius Pilatus descendants to correct a
| historical mistake.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I wonder if this were to applied to more modern cases by some
| governments, would then the later governments apply new
| conviction or overturn the overturn... And how many times
| this chain could happen?
|
| Unless, the case is so recent that it had some effect in
| modern day. I wouldn't go touch the old stuff. It is way too
| risky in long run...
| zabzonk wrote:
| Lots of people seemed to appreciate Alan Turing (and lots of
| other people) being pardoned for something that should never
| have been a crime in the first place. Basically, it's a very
| concrete sign of how we want our society to be now.
| DanBC wrote:
| Also, pardoning Turing makes it easier to get pardons for
| people who had similar convictions but who are still alive.
|
| Pardon for Turing - 2013:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315
|
| Turing's law, pardon for thousands of gay men - 2016:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37711518
| eznzt wrote:
| i.e. rewriting history.
| zabzonk wrote:
| history is the multiple re-writings of our understanding
| actual events, in as much as we can understand them
| tzs wrote:
| How is saying that some past act was wrong "rewriting
| history"?
|
| Rewriting history would be saying that the past act never
| happened.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Nope. It's just a symbol of hope, that humanity can
| improve.
| eznzt wrote:
| Humanity improves by improving forward, not by changing
| the meaning of historical events.
| dmix wrote:
| The article mentions Galileo:
|
| > "They were political trials and the penalties of exile and
| death inflicted on Dante, my dear ancestor, are unjust and have
| never been cancelled as happened with Galileo Galilei,"
|
| But his heresy 'case' wasn't ever officially overturned by the
| Catholic Church. Various modern Pope's just said some nice things
| about him, but didn't go as far as over ruling the heresey
| charge. Assuming that was possible.
|
| The pope had his talks canceled at La Sapienza University over
| this as recently as January 2008 .
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair#Modern_Catholic...
| gumby wrote:
| Seriously, why bother?
|
| There are historical wrongs that continue to affect people today,
| but in this case that's been damped out by time.
| sigzero wrote:
| Because it matters to his descendants?
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| But do they really have standing?
| gumby wrote:
| After 600 years I would hope it's below these peoples' noise
| floor.
|
| Then again I'm more interested in my reputation regarding
| things I have done rather than things someone else did.
| frostburg wrote:
| You would think so, but probably no. I'm not someone that
| directly cares about the many inter-Tuscan historical
| grievances, but when I leave the Florence area for, say,
| the nearby province of Pistoia I feel more in foreign land
| than in London or Berlin.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 1302 to today, that's 36 generations. 2 to the 36th means his
| descendants today have 1 / 70,000,000,000 of his genetic
| contribution.
|
| I'd say they don't have legal standing.
| ouid wrote:
| You're forgetting to double count for "incest".
| evanb wrote:
| This was flagged, but I think mistakenly by people who think
| you're joking or taking a dig. The point is there weren't
| 70,000,000,000 people alive in Italy back then (or, you know,
| anywhere ever), so it is very likely that Dante shows up in
| multiple branches of this person's ancestry.
| belorn wrote:
| I am not sure that is a correct definition of incest, as it
| more commonly refer to breeding between family members or
| close relatives, with the definition of close being up to
| the legal system in place. Just two people with a common
| ancestry would be a too board definition to be useful.
|
| But it is correct that 1 / 70,000,000,000 is the wrong
| numbers of the genetic contribution. In order to find the
| correct number one would have to determine the coefficient
| of relationship of the average couple. It is going to a
| much smaller number, but at the same time far from actually
| incest.
|
| That said, incest law in Italy is a bit weird. It is legal,
| except if it causes a scandal.
| Grustaf wrote:
| They have 100% of his name. That is more important than biology
| to a lot of people.
| cgsullivan wrote:
| A direct paternal-line descendent of Dante, which Sperello
| Alighieri might very well be, would essentially share a copy of
| Dante's Y-DNA, which is about 2% of the human genome. This is
| comparable to something between 2nd cousin (3.13%) and 3rd
| cousin (1.5%).
| clcuc wrote:
| Would you care to elaborate? You're talking about the Y of
| the XY chromosomes?
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| If Dante's son had a son who had a son x 36, the Y
| chromosome would not have changed much
| mdeck_ wrote:
| Dante has no living paternal-line descendants. The reason for
| the unusual (for Italy) double last name Serego Alighieri was
| to preserve the Alighieri name despite there being only
| female descendants left at the time (in the 1500s). Source:
| https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alighieri#Storia_familiare
| (in Italian)
| cjohansson wrote:
| This is like cleaning up the git history of a project
| pacbard wrote:
| I guess that they could ask for a new trial but wouldn't it
| better if they would settle it using poetry, specifically comic
| poetry (or vituperium) that was common during Dante's time? It
| would be great if the two heirs would face off on tv on a poetry
| battle where they take turns to roast each other families in both
| Latin and Old Tuscan. I would watch that.
| gumby wrote:
| Could be a 1980s style rap battle, which is the most modern
| equivalent.
| adamc wrote:
| I confess to not understanding why people bother doing things
| like this.
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