I was conflicted as to wether i should post this in this sub or r/books, but I hope that this question can be answered here. I just picked up a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, but I’ve heard it is a satire and contains a lot of references to culture/politics at the time. I’m not familiar with what sort of references these would be, I would greatly appreciate if someone could give me some context in order to thoroughly enjoy this work!
Any good edition of the commedy will have plenty of notes that explain the history and cultural context of the time , in english Durling and Martinez translation seems to be the best one,The di salvo edition by zanichelli is a great choice if you read in the original language . Dante is really specific in his references sometimes describing relatively unknown characters of 14th century florence , "Dante a brief history " by Hawkings is great if you want to get familiar with the historical context and the other works of author (this will help you a lot to understand the commedy better) Unfortunately the majority of the works regarding Dante that I know are still untranslated but I would be happy to suggest you something more specific if you can read italian .