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What if, instead of writing the Divine Comedy in exile, Dante successfully rallied his faction of the Guelphs and recaptured Florence? He was big for the power of the Holy Roman Emperor in Italy, and I can think of all sorts of potential butterflies for the Papacy, the HRE, the Crusades, and eventually the age of Discovery. At the very least, he had the potential to be an earlier Savonarola, or perhaps a very much earlier Luther (Dante really didn't like the contemporary Popes - to the extent of having the damned in Inferno asking "Is that you, Boniface?" at his approach). Or even still an extremely early Garibaldi, at least for Northern Italy. That's it ladies and gentleman (or at least gentlemen)...AH.com's first DanteWank!