A friend of mine does it, but she practiced first on used/ruined/didntcarefor books because with spray paint a lot is about distance and pressure on the valve! If you find some 2 or 5 bucks books that you don't care if you ruined start with those to see what distance and pressure to apply and then you can do it to other books knowing you won't ruin them.

I was supposing since OP is reading it in college that the professor is explaining some of that history in class... if the professors don't, American students have my deepest admiration tbh because how is anyone supposed to understand Dante who wrote about his contemporary history without... a lecture on his contemporary history...?

Is the translator trying to keep the terza rima/terzina ? Maybe it complicates the translation a bit... I mean I think the rhyme is essential for the musicality of it but if you're having a hard maybe you can try a blank verse translation and then observe the musicality on the Italian text (if jn your country translations have original text on the opposite page)?