Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Dante Alighieri spent nearly two
Speaker 1: decades writing his most famous work, what we now call
Speaker 1: The Divine Comedy. I say now because for the first
Speaker 1: two centuries after his death it was simply called Commodia,
Speaker 1: and the Divina was added around fifteen. It's seen as
Speaker 1: the most significant work of Italian literature and is still
Speaker 1: studied by scholars and woven into popular culture today. If
Speaker 1: you've heard the phrase the circles of Hell, you have
Speaker 1: Dante to thank for that. Most recently, the author Dan Brown,
Speaker 1: known for or his novel The Da Vinci Code, published
Speaker 1: a novel called Inferno. As you might imagine, Dante features
Speaker 1: heavily in the story. And it's amazing to see a
Speaker 1: work of literature still be so influential after over five
Speaker 1: hundred years in print. But it almost didn't happen. As
Speaker 1: I said before, Dante spent nearly two decades writing his masterpiece.
Speaker 1: Everyone around him had plenty of time to learn about
Speaker 1: his project. His two sons, Jacopo and Pietro, were most
Speaker 1: likely allowed to read along as he wrote it. I
Speaker 1: guess my point is that people were aware of the book.
Speaker 1: It was the center of his existence for so long,
Speaker 1: after all. And then in one just a year after
Speaker 1: he had completed the whole thing, but before he had
Speaker 1: a chance to publish it, Dante died. His family went
Speaker 1: through that same sort of grieving process we would experience today,
Speaker 1: wrapping up his final affairs and making sure his burial
Speaker 1: was taken care of properly. But within weeks life would
Speaker 1: have moved on, except his uns couldn't forget that manuscript,
Speaker 1: and who could blame them now? The Divine Comedy is
Speaker 1: a collection of one parts called cantos. Going through his
Speaker 1: papers after his death, Dante's sons discovered that there were
Speaker 1: thirteen canto's missing. That'sent of the book, one eighth of
Speaker 1: the completed work, and not just any thirtcent either. They
Speaker 1: were missing the final chapters of the entire story. It
Speaker 1: was maddening. According to an early Dante biographer, the sons
Speaker 1: searched the family home for months. They went through every
Speaker 1: scrap of paper they could find, dug through drawers, and
Speaker 1: boxes and looked for any clue that might tell them
Speaker 1: where the missing pages had gone, but nothing worked and
Speaker 1: they were left empty handed. Friends recommended that the two
Speaker 1: men simply complete the story themselves. They knew how it
Speaker 1: was supposed to end, and they were familiar with their
Speaker 1: father's work, so why couldn't they just piece together the
Speaker 1: final parts and call it a day? And that was
Speaker 1: certainly possible, but it was far from ideal. They, like
Speaker 1: a lot of other people, wanted their father's official ending.
Speaker 1: As the story goes, one of the sons, Jocopel, went
Speaker 1: to sleep one night after another frustrating day of searching
Speaker 1: for the papers, and a short while later began to dream.
Speaker 1: In it, he saw the figure of his father, dressed
Speaker 1: in white and glowing in that Renaissance painting sort of way.
Speaker 1: Still fixated on the missing papers, Jocope asked his father
Speaker 1: about it, and the older man nodded before walking over
Speaker 1: to a particular spot along his chamber wall, and then
Speaker 1: he pointed. The next morning, Jocope called for a lawyer
Speaker 1: to watch as he searched the room. There, right in
Speaker 1: the spot his father's ghost had told him about, he
Speaker 1: found a hidden compartment with stacks of paper. Inside. They
Speaker 1: were covered in mold and had begun to rot on
Speaker 1: the edges, but they were still legible. After reading through
Speaker 1: them for a moment, he smiled the missing pages had
Speaker 1: been found. It's crazy to imagine, but one of the
Speaker 1: most significant works of literature of all time almost didn't happen.
Speaker 1: The Divine Comedy is responsible for providing us with vivid
Speaker 1: images of the world beyond our own, from hopeful visions
Speaker 1: of Paradise to the nightmarish trials of Hell. The fact
Speaker 1: that they even exist today at all feels like a
Speaker 1: random victory for Dante or his sons, though it was
Speaker 1: nothing short of a dream come true. The eighteen sixties
Speaker 1: was not a good era for transatlantic travel. The most
Speaker 1: advanced passenger ships were steampowered, but even with that technology,
Speaker 1: the average journey from England to America took nearly two weeks.
Speaker 1: That's a long time to be in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ocean, considering how often weather can change over a
Speaker 1: two week period. In October of eighteen sixty three, two
Speaker 1: ships departed Liverpool on their way to America. One of them,
Speaker 1: the Africa, encountered horrible weather and reportedly sank as a result,
Speaker 1: The second ship, called the City of Limerick, wasn't doing
Speaker 1: much better either. They had been moving through rough seas
Speaker 1: and dark storms for nearly a week, and there didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be an end in sight. On board was
Speaker 1: a man named mister Wilmot, who was returning to the
Speaker 1: United States, where his wife awaited him at home in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Wilmot was sharing a stateroom with a friend, a man
Speaker 1: named mister Tate. The two men slept on bunks in
Speaker 1: the room, Wilmot on the bottom and Tate up above,
Speaker 1: but for at least a few days, Wilmot had barely
Speaker 1: moved from his bed due to seasickness from the choppy waves.
Speaker 1: One stormy night, though, Wilmot was sleeping in his bunk
Speaker 1: when he had the most vivid dream in it. He
Speaker 1: could see the door to the tiny stateroom slowly open,
Speaker 1: and they're dressed in a white nightgown. Was his wife.
Speaker 1: It was a logical vision. He missed her terribly, and
Speaker 1: the growing anticipation of being reunited with her hadn't helped.
Speaker 1: Even if it was just a dream, it was good
Speaker 1: to see her again. When she stepped into the room,
Speaker 1: Wilmot noticed a nervous look on her face. She cast
Speaker 1: a worried glance in his direction, but higher up, as
Speaker 1: if she were looking at the bunk warts Ate slept,
Speaker 1: Then carefully, she crept over to Wilmot's bed, stooped down low,
Speaker 1: and kissed him. A moment later, she stood back up,
Speaker 1: slipped out of the room, and the dream was over.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Wilmot awoke to find Tate standing beside
Speaker 1: his bed, staring down at him with a frown. You're
Speaker 1: a pretty fellow, Tate said, sarcastically. To have a lady
Speaker 1: come and visit you here. Wilmot was confused and asked
Speaker 1: his friend to explain himself. Tate went on to describe
Speaker 1: in incredible detail the visit of a woman in a
Speaker 1: white dressing gown who had approached the bunk and kissed
Speaker 1: Wilmot naturally. Wilmot was stunned. It was exactly as he
Speaker 1: had dreamt it. But that wasn't possible. How could two
Speaker 1: men have the same dream, let alone doing so inside
Speaker 1: the same room. This would be an amazing tale if
Speaker 1: it ended right there, But there's actually more. About a
Speaker 1: week after the shared dream, the steamship docked in New
Speaker 1: York and Wilmot caught a train north to Connecticut. His
Speaker 1: entire family had gathered to welcome him home, and it
Speaker 1: was probably a very happy occasion. But the moment he
Speaker 1: and his wife had a second alone, she surprised him
Speaker 1: with a very unusual question. Did you receive a visit
Speaker 1: from me a week ago? She asked, stunned, Wilmot nodded,
Speaker 1: but also noted that it would have been impossible. How
Speaker 1: could she have boarded his ship and found him in
Speaker 1: his quarters? Her answer was chilling. Apparently, after hearing the
Speaker 1: news of the sinking of the Africa, she had spent
Speaker 1: days suffering from deep anxiety, worried for the safety of
Speaker 1: her husband. One night, about a week before his return,
Speaker 1: she found herself still awake into the night, and was
Speaker 1: so overcome with fear that she imagined visiting her husband
Speaker 1: as he traveled. She described entering the room and how
Speaker 1: she could see Tate, awake in his own bed, watching
Speaker 1: her as she looked around. She described the kiss, the
Speaker 1: gentle caress, and then her silence exit. Then, as if
Speaker 1: to prove it had all really happened, she described every
Speaker 1: detail of the room, right down to the structure of
Speaker 1: the bunks, the two men slept on. If the story
Speaker 1: of Mr and Mrs Wilmot is any indication, love is
Speaker 1: a powerful, mysterious force that binds us to each other.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we love someone so deeply that we can't shake
Speaker 1: the feeling that they're right there with us, even when
Speaker 1: they're far away, And perhaps there's a good reason why.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.