Dante's Nose Shape Controversy Finally Settled

Posted on January 17, 2007

Apparently the poet Dante's nose has been the source of an ongoing controversy. For 700 years, scholars have accepted that the renowed poet and author of The Divine Comedy had an aristocratic, large, hooked nose. Alas, it appears that the historical renderings of the writer's nose were inaccurate. But now a team of nosy Italian scientists have declared that they now know exactly what Dante's nose looked like.

Professor Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist at the University of Bologna, tells Reuters, "It was a surprise for me too. "We all had our ideas of what Dante looked like. But if this is right, it shows his face was different. He looks more like a common man, a man on the street."

This is just devastating. All our illusions about Dante's nose have been absolutely shattered.