In commemoration of Dante Alighieri’s life and work, many projects were realized on the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death. One of them, which took place at the end of 2021, was a series of conversations, sponsored in part by the Italian Heritage and Culture Committee Inc., including this one with Alessandro Barbero, a professor of history at University of Eastern Piedmont and a famous figure from Italy’s numerous history programs on television. Barbero enjoys an unusual amount of fame in Italy, where it is fair to say that he is almost universally beloved on account of his uncanny ability to explain history in accessible language, as well as his general affability, which is on clear display in this video conversation with Calandra’s dean Anthony Julian Tamburri. Barbero is fluent in many languages, including English, the language of this conversation.
Alessandro Barbero in conversation with Anthony Julian Tamburri
The author of numerous books and essays, Alessandro Barbero is both a novelist and scholar of Italian Medieval history and literature. As novelist, in 1996, he won Italy’s most prestigious literary prize, the Strega Award, for his novel, Bella vita e guerre altrui di Mr. Pyle, gentiluomo. His book, Dante (Laterza, 2020) was extremely well received; a copy in English is due out in 2022, Dante. A Life (Simon & Schuster). Barbero is the author of The Battle, an account of the Battle of Waterloo; The Day of the Barbarians, the story of the Battle of Adrianople; and Charlemagne—all published in Britain. He writes for Il Sole 24 Ore and La Stampa, is the editor of Storia d’Europa e del Mediterranean, and regularly appears on Italian television and radio. In 2005, the Republic of France awarded Barbero with the title of Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in Italy, and Dante is his first book to be published in America.
