The little we know about Dante's moves shows that in 1306, perhaps as a result of the hardening of Guelf attitudes in Bologna, he was in the Lunigiana. There, at Sarzana, Franceschino Malaspina, Marquis of Mulazzo, empowered Dante to negotiate with Antonio da Camilla, bishop of Luni, at Castelnuovo di Magra regarding contested rights over the castles of Sarzana, Carrara, Santo Stefano, and Bolano. The negotiations were successful, recognizing all the gains made by the Malaspina family during the thirteenth century and enhancing their prestige. In Purg. VIII. 122-32, in his imagined encounter with Corrado II, Dante praises this family for its chivalric virtues and the unique example it offers to a world gone astray. (Scott 40).

             Scott details this personal/political quest further by continuing to follow Dante's politiccs and life, and tracing his political motives in his works. This would have been a challenge to any individual authority of the church who held political favor of the individuals, whom Dante condemned or praised in his works.

             DanteEp. IV, of 1307-8, may well have been addressed to Moroello Malaspina, Marquis of Giovagallo, the "fiery vapor from Val di Magra" (Inf. XXIV. 145) who led the Black exiles to victory against the Whites of Pistoia, and whose wife Alagia Fieschi is praised in Purg. XIX. 142-45. If so, the exiled poet's friendship with a Black Guelf general (perhaps as a result of Cino da Pistoia's mediation) is another instance of the attempts at pacification that were a consequence of the policies practiced by the papal legates in Italy, and which may also have left their mark on the political catholicism that inspired Dante's choice of exempla in his Purgatorio. Hopes for a general reconciliation reached a climax -- followed by total failure (Scott 40) .

             Dante, traced his own personal economic and political trials through his experiences in a system, not unlike that described by his Catholic faith, and yet in so doing he must have known that he would challenge the Catholic ideal of centralized authority and power.