Certainly, the issue never even occurred to Dante. Over the course of a century, the wealth of his city, which came from extraordinary growth in trade and manufacturing, nourished Humanism and the Renaissance, and bred and attracted some of the most celebrated artists and intellectuals of all time.
Yet Dante focused on the offensive ”puzzo” (“stench”) of people from rural areas who were invading the town.6 He did not grasp the contribution that these new arrivals could make in terms of work and ingenuity, nor did he perceive the multiplier effect of urban development on economic and cultural growth.