Amusement
So I just started grading my students' first essays. Another first semester Italian class, and the assignment was to pick a famous Italian and write about them in the present tense (historical present, really). You know: "Dante is born in 126-whatever. He is the author of the Divine Comedy. It's not very funny. He is in love with Beatrice. She dies. He dies later." That kind of thing. I just read the first of my students' actual essays, though (the only one I've got since it was emailed to me and the others are in hard copy at school). Aside from the fact that Machiavelli was born in 14069 (presumably B.C. because we haven't hit that year A.D. yet) and died backwards (if indeed it is B.C.) in 15027, I have learned that he wrote Il Prezzo (The Price [sic]) and Discourses on Livy (in English?) after his own death.