"Fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit" (His firmness guarded Rhodes).
This is a tribute to Amadeus the Great (b.1249), the founder of the dynasty of Savoy. In 1310 he helped against the Saracens at the siege of Rhodes.
Societa Nazionale Dante Alighieri. (The National Society of Dante Alighieri).
The first society was founded in Italy in 1889 (SocietÓ Dante Alighieri/Societa Dantesca Italiana/Societa Nazionale Dante Alighieri). The purpose of the societies was philological, but it also had a political and cultural objective, which was exploited by the fascist regime. After the Second World War the society was reorganized to dissociate it from the fascist past.
Also in other European countries societies were founded in the later part of the 19th century, in Germany already in 1865.
Dante (1265-1321), more then any other, contributed to create the Italian language. He was the first to write about Italy as a geographical unity with a collective culture. He divorced the religious rule of the Pope and the secular rule of the king or emperor.
From the end of the 18th century Dante became a symbol of the justification and necessity of an Italian national state, and he was used to legitimise the political unification of Italy. His most famous works are "La divina Commedia" (The Divine Commedy), "De vulgari eloquentia" (On the Language of the People) and "De Monarchia" (On Monarchy).