House of Dante

This guide to the House of Dante in Florence starts with an odd piece of evidence: a dispute over a fig tree in the 1290s that let historians centuries later pinpoint where the Alighieri family actually lived. You'll hear how the house standing here today is a 1911 reconstruction, built after a special commission spent years confirming the site, and about Dante's exile from Florence in his thirties. Look up at this small square before you go in, and picture the fig tree that started it all.