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Nick Havely examines the connections between Dante, the Franciscans and the Papacy as they appear in the Commedia and presents the poem as one concerned with an often dramatic confrontation between authority and idealism in the Church. Havely draws on a wide range of literary, historical and art-historical sources relating to the controversy about Franciscan poverty during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. This study will appeal to scholars interested in medieval religious and intellectual history, as well as to readers of Dante's poem.