Dante Alighieri was named for the Italian poet, writer, and philosopher best known for the Divine Comedy. Italy had existed as a unified country for only 39 years when the battleship was launched in 1910. The launch is described as something like the country's fortieth-birthday present to itself, although commissioning followed in 1913. The ship was both a naval weapon and a public statement by a young state.
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A battleship named for Dante Alighieri
The opening links the Italian capital ship's literary namesake with the ambitions of a state unified only four decades earlier.