Dante Monument Threatened Over Mohammed Reference

RAVENNA, Italy — A group has threatened to blow up a monument to Dante Alighieri because the medieval poet’s famed “Divine Comedy” places the Prophet Mohammed in hell, officials said Sunday.

Mayor Mauro Dragone said he ordered increased security around the monument to the poet, who died in Ravenna in 1321, after receiving a threatening letter from a group calling itself “Guardians of the Revolution.”

The “Divine Comedy” is considered a literary masterpiece that established the Tuscan dialect as the literary language of Italy. The work, a poem of more than 14,000 lines in 100 cantos, recounts a poet’s journey through hell, purgatory and heaven. It places Mohammed in the ninth pit of hell.