Dante and Economics, Indizio's Two Passions

A 1997 GRADUATE, GIUSEPPE INDIZIO, BUSINESS CONSULTANT, IS NOW AN ESTEEMED SCHOLAR ON THE GREAT POET. HE RECENTLY WROTE A BOOK ABOUT DANTE'S BIOGRAPHIES, WHICH WAS PURCHASED BY THE US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Dante and numbers, distinguished poetry and the pragmatic concreteness of economics. For Giuseppe Indizio, a forty-two-year-old native of Naples who graduated from Bocconi with a degree in Business Economics, it wasn’t an easy choice: he had a passion for literature, with all the professional uncertainties it entails, but he also wanted to complete a degree that was “marketable, a guarantee of future employment.” In the end he chose both. “I enrolled in the test, I passed and I came to Milan.” He had a rocky start, then gradually settled in and did well in his studies until graduation. “I wasn’t involved much in university life outside lectures and exams,” says Giuseppe. “When I had free time I went to Sormani Library where I would read anything I could find on Dante, my great passion. I didn’t have a real plan, I was just curious and followed ideas.”

In Italy, many people believe we know everything is there is to know about Dante, but in reality, says Indizio, not much is known. And often what is understood is only understood superficially. “We know all about his work, but little or nothing about his biography and his life. It’s full of holes because archival research, which is hard and unrewarding, is not completed,  while pompous books without relevance continue to be published and know-it-alls reign. Dante was a man who took difficult positions,” continues Indizio, “on the main issues of his time, challenging the times and breaking the mold. And he wrote amazingly well when a true Italian language did not even exist.”

Giuseppe Indizio, whose archival research was a far cry from his responsibilities as a business consultant after many years at a banking group, is now an esteemed Dante scholar who has recently published a book that has been adopted by important university libraries and large international institutions, such as the US Library of Congress. The book,Problems with Dante Biographies(Longo Editore), is for specialists, and many of Indizio’s articles and publications have been used by universities. But Dante is heritage for everyone, and should be better valued. “According to the news of his time, Dante had an approach similar to a reporter, like a pioneer journalist, in addition to being the true father of the Italian language. He was a non-organic intellectual and an outstanding and very courageous artist, who should be studied because he wrote about politics, society and culture with great intellectual freedom at a time when a person could be killed for having those ideas.”

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Jenna Walker