Notwithstanding all this civic engagement stuff I try to do, I’m actually

a moral philosopher. I have an incomplete manuscript of several hundred

pages on the story of Paolo and Francesca and what it means for moral

theory. (See this webpage.) It occasionally bothers

me that I have left so much material untouched for so long. Today I sensed

a lull and took out chapter one. It’s a mess, but I enjoyed starting to

reorganize it.

Dante ended his life in the household of the lord of Ravenna, one Guido

Novello da Polenta. Dante was Guido’s close friend and courtier. Guido’s

aunt was Francesca do Rimini, one of the most famous damned souls in Dante’s

Inferno. So it’s intriguing—although not profoundly important—to

ask whether Dante was already close to Guido when he wrote about Francesca.

I spent this morning organizing the available (scanty) evidence: a nice

break from more current concerns.

I stayed downtown today. Some of us from CIRCLE

had an interesting lunch in Union Station, discussing research ideas with

some potential applicants. I was also on my cell phone a fair amount,

mostly talking to fellow NACE members

about opportunities to mobilize the organization. In between things, I

ran—literally ran—into the National Gallery. I headed for an

area that I hadn’t been in for a long time, and found myself looking at

a couple of striking portraits of Guiliano de’ Medici, who was murdered

at mass in the Pazzi conspiracy. The Gallery has Botticelli’s amazing

painting

(which looks almost like a fine modern cartoon, with its bold blocks of

color and exeggerated features) and also Verocchio’s large bust

of the same young man. Guiliano is ugly but charismatic; confident or

perhaps arrogant; and very much an individual. I can’t think of anything

else to write about these portraits except art-historical cliches ("Renaissance

individualism," "unsentimental realism" …), but it was

a 25-minute break that will stay with me for a long time.