Whatever incipient popular government Dante saw around him seemed to be a harbinger of unrest and bloody factional battles, or at best, of unwarranted, even laughable ambitions (“I’ mi sobbarco!”, “I’ll take it on”) and of a pathologically unstable legislative framework (“a mezzo novembre non giunge ciò che tu d’ottobre fili”, “what you spin in October does not reach to mid-November”: Purgatorio, VI, 135; 143-144).
This was clearly not just an abstract idea: the violence of the clashes between factions left a profound mark on his life, as he was exiled, theoretically sentenced to death and his goods were confiscated when his political faction fell from power. This dense fog of public ills and personal suffering prevented him from seeing further ahead.