Dante Alighieri

Italian poet. His masterpiece La divina commedia/The Divine Comedy (1307–21) is an epic account in three parts of his journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, during which he is guided part of the way by the poet Virgil; on a metaphorical level, the journey is also one of Dante's own spiritual development. Other works include De vulgari eloquentia/Concerning the Vulgar Tongue (1304–06), an original Latin work on Italian, its dialects, and kindred languages; the philosophical prose treatise Convivio/The Banquet (1306–08), the first major work of its kind to be written in Italian rather than Latin; De monarchia/On World Government (1310–13), expounding his political theories; and Canzoniere/Lyrics.

Dante was born in Florence, where in 1274 he first met and fell in love with Beatrice Portinari (described in La vita nuova/New Life (1283–92)). His love for her survived her marriage to another man and her death in 1290 at the age of 24. According to the writer Boccaccio, from 1283 to 1289 Dante was engaged in study, and after the death of Beatrice he seems to have entered into a period of intense philosophic study. In 1289 he fought in the battle of Campaldino, won by Florence against Arezzo, and from 1295 took an active part in Florentine politics. In 1300 he was one of the six priors of the Republic, favouring the moderate Guelph party rather than the extreme papal Ghibelline faction (see Guelph and Ghibelline); when the Ghibellines seized power in 1302, he was convicted in his absence of misapplication of public money and sentenced to death. He escaped from Florence and spent the remainder of his life in exile, in central and northern Italy.