A strikingly modern sounding comment by Dante, resonating painfully when the evening news seems to be forever picking apart the latest vagaries of bad leadership. 

‘Ill guidance is the cause of the ill fame

The world has earned, this wicked world of pain –

Bad leadership, not nature gone to rot

In you.’ 

‘Ben puoi veder che la mala condotta

è la cagion che ‘l mondo ha fatto reo,

e non natura che ‘n voi sia corrotta.’

See also our illustrated quote-rich celebration of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Clive James’ superb translation. 

Source: Dante,The Divine Comedy (Purgatory, Canto 16), trans. Clive James (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013), p. 256

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