What is purgatory? History of Christianity
A demon torturing a sinful bishop and a king (Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, 1200s AD) In the early days of Christianity, people pretty much thought that at the Last Judgment you [...]
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Thomas Aquinas – Dominican monk
Naples, with Mount Vesuvius in the background Like Ibn Rushd and Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas was a great thinke who tried to figure out the relationship between science and religion. But unlike Ibn Rushd [...]
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Dante Alighieri – Inferno – Middle Ages
Dante Alighieri, painted by Giotto about 1320 AD Dante wrote in Italian, not Latin Since the time of the Romans, writers who lived in Italy had always written in Latin. Virgil wrote in Latin, Ovid wrote in Latin, [...]
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Boccaccio – Decameron – Medieval literature
Florence, Italy Who was Boccaccio? Most of the people who knew how to write in the early Middle Ages were monks. So most of them wrote about serious things like God and [...]
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Late medieval Italy – Guelfs and Ghibellines
Late medieval Italy: Constance of Sicily (late 1100s AD) North Italy's republics All through the later middle ages, Northern Italy was still divided into lots of small independent city-states. The most important city-states [...]
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Republic of Florence – Medieval Italy
Romanesque baptistery in the Republic of Florence, Italy Florence ruled by Matilda of Canossa The last of the Carolingian Holy Roman Emperors died in 924 AD. Then northern Italy - including Florence and nearby Genoa [...]
