Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Dante Alighieri (circa May 29, 1265 – September
13/14, 1321) was a Florentine poet. His greatest
work, La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy), is
considered the greatest literary statement
produced in Europe in the medieval period, and the
basis of the modern Italian language.

Life

Early life and family

Dante was born in 1265 and he tells us he was born
under the sign of Gemini, placing his birthday in
May or June. He was born into the prominent
Alighieri family of Florence, with loyalties to
the Guelfs, a political alliance involved in
complex opposition to the Ghibellines; Guelfs
themselves were divided into White Guelfs
(pro-imperial) and Black Guelfs. Dante (a White
Guelf) pretended that his family descended from
the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the
earliest relative he can mention by name is
Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), of
no earlier than about 1100.

His father, Alighiero di Bellincione, was a White
Guelf, but suffered no reprisals after the
Ghibellines won the battle of Montaperti, and this
safety reveals a certain personal or family
prestige.

Dante\'s mother was Donna Bella degli Abati;
\"Bella\" stands for Gabriella, but also means
\"beautiful\", while Abati (the name of a powerful
family) means friars; a really curious name. She
died when Dante was 5 or 6 years old, and
Alighiero soon married Miss Lapa di Chiarissimo
Cialuffi. (It is uncertain whether he really
married her, as widowers had social limitations in
these matters.) This woman definitely bore two
children, Dante\'s brother Francesco and sister
Tana (Gaetana).

When Dante was 12, in 1277, he was promised in
marriage to Gemma, daughter of Messer Manetto
Donati. Contracting marriages at this early age
was quite common, and was an important ceremony,
requiring formal deeds signed before a notary.
Dante had several sons with Gemma. As often
happens with famous people, many children
pretended to be Dante\'s offspring; however, it is
likely that Jacopo, Pietro, and Antonia were truly
his children. Antonia became a nun with the name
of Sister Beatrice. Another man, Giovanni, claimed
to be his son and was in exile with Dante, but
some doubts were advanced about his claim.


Education and poetry

Not much is known about Dante\'s education, and it
is presumed he studied at home. We know he studied
Tuscan poetry, at a time when the Sicilian School
(Scuola poetica siciliana), a cultural group from
Sicily, was becoming known in Tuscany. His
interests brought him to discover Provençal
minstrels and poets, and Latin culture (with an
obvious particular devotion to Virgil).

It should be underlined that during the \"Secoli
Bui\" (Dark Ages), Italy had become a mosaic of
small states, so Sicily was as far (culturally and
politically) from Tuscany as Provence was: the
regions did not share a language, culture, or easy
communications. Nevertheless, we can assume that
Dante was a keen up-to-date intellectual with
international interests.

When 18, he met Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni,
Cino da Pistoia, and soon after Brunetto Latini;
together they became the leaders of Dolce Stil
Nuovo (The Sweet New Style). Brunetto later
received a special mention in the Divine Comedy
(Inferno, XV, 82), for what he had taught Dante.
Other studies are reported, or deduced from Vita
Nuova or the Divine Comedy, regarding painting and
music.

When he was nine years old he met Beatrice
Portinari, the daughter of Folco Portinari, with
whom he fell in love \"at first sight\", and
apparently without even having spoken to her. He
saw her frequently after age 18, often exchanging
greetings in the street, but he never knew her
well. It is hard to decipher of what this love
consisted, but something extremely important for
Italian culture was happening: as it is in the
sign of this love that Dante gave his imprint to
the Stil Novo and would lead poets and writers to
discover the themes of Love (Amore), which had
never been so emphasized before. Love for Beatrice
(as in a different manner Petrarca would show for
his Laura) would apparently be the reason for
poetry and for living, together with political
passions.

When Beatrice died in 1290, Dante tried to find a
refuge in Latin literature. From the Convivio we
know that he had read Boethius\'s De consolatione
philosophiae and Cicero\'s De amicitia. He then
dedicated himself to philosophical studies at
religious schools like the Dominican one in Santa
Maria Novella. He took part in the disputes that
the two principal monastic orders (Franciscan and
Dominican) publicly or indirectly held in
Florence, the former explaining the doctrine of
the mystics and of San Bonaventura, the latter
presenting Saint Thomas Aquinas\' theories. His
\"excessive\" passion for philosophy would later
be criticized by Beatrice, in Purgatory.


Florence and politics

Dante also found time to be a soldier, and in 1289
fought in the battle of Campaldino (June 11), with
Florentine knights against Arezzo, then in 1294 he
was among those knights who escorted Carlo
Martello d\'Anjou (son of Charles of Anjou) while
he was in Florence.

He also became a doctor and a pharmacist; he did
not intend to take up those professions, but a law
issued in 1295 required that nobles who wanted to
assume public office had to be enrolled in one of
the Corporazioni di Arti e Mestieri, so Dante
obtained quick admission to the apothecaries\'
guild and could consequently begin his political
career. The profession he chose was not entirely
inapt, since at the time books were sold from
apothecaries\' shops. As a politician, he
accomplished little of relevance, but he held
various offices over a number of years in a city
undergoing some political agitation.

The Guelfs were divided into two factions: the
White Guelfs (Guelfi Bianchi) (led by Vieri dei
Cerchi), and the Black Guelfs (Guelfi Neri) (led
by Corso Donati). \"Colours\" were chosen when
Vieri dei Cerchi gave his protection to the
Grandi\'s family in Pistoia, which was locally
called La parte bianca (the white party); Corso
Donati had consequently protected the rival (parte
nera), and these colours became the distinctive
colours of the parties in Florence.

Being engaged in politics was not easy when Pope
Boniface VIII was planning a military occupation
of Florence, because this involved issues which
transcended the city, and were beyond the scope of
a local official. In 1301, Charles de Valois,
brother of Philippe le Bel king of France, was
expected to visit Florence because the Pope had
appointed him peacemaker for Tuscany. But the
city\'s government had already treated the Pope\'s
ambassadors badly a few weeks before, seeking
independence from Papal influences. It was thought
wise to consider the hypothesis that Charles de
Valois could eventually have received other
unofficial orders. So the council sent a
delegation to Rome, in order to ascertain the
Pope\'s intentions. Dante was the chief of this
delegation.

Exile and death

Boniface quickly sent away the other
representatives and asked Dante alone to remain in
Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301) Charles
de Valois was entering Florence with Black Guelfs,
who in the next six days destroyed everything and
killed most of their enemies. A new government was
installed of Black Guelfs, and Cante dei
Gabbrielli di Gubbio was named Podestà (mayor).
Dante was condemned to exile for two years, and to
pay a huge amount of money. The poet was still in
Rome, where the Pope had \"suggested\" he stay,
and was therefore considered an absconder. He
could not pay his fine and was finally condemned
to perpetual exile. If he were ever caught by
Florentine soldiers, he would have been summarily
executed.

The poet took part in several attempts by the
White Guelfs to regain the power they had lost,
but these failed due to treachery. Dante, bitter
at the treatment he had received at the hands of
his enemies, also grew disgusted with the
infighting and ineffectiveness of his erstwhile
allies and vowed, in his own words, to become a
party of one. At this point he began sketching the
foundations for the Comedy, a work in 100 cantos,
divided into three books of thirty-three cantos
each, with a single introductory canto.

He went to Verona as a guest of Bartolomeo Della
Scala, then moved to Sarzana (Liguria), and after
this he is supposed to have lived for some time in
Lucca with Madame Gentucca, who made his stay
comfortable (and was later gratefully mentioned in
Purgatorio XXIV,37). Some sources say that he was
in Paris, too, between 1308 and 1310. Other
sources, even less trustworthy, take him to
Oxford.

In 1310 Henry VII of Luxembourg, King of the
Romans (Germany), was invading Italy; Dante saw in
him the chance of revenge, so he wrote to him (and
to other Italian princes) several public letters
violently inciting them to destroy the Black
Guelfs. Mixing religion and private concerns, he
invoked the worst anger of God against his town,
suggesting several particular targets that
coincided with his personal enemies.

In Florence Baldo d\'Aguglione pardoned most of
the White Guelfs in exile and allowed them to come
back; however, Dante had gone beyond the pale in
his violent letters to Arrigo (Henry VII), and he
was not recalled.

In 1312, Arrigo assaulted Florence and defeated
the Black Guelfs, but there is no evidence that
Dante was involved. Some say he refused to
participate in the assault on his city by a
foreigner; others suggest that his name had become
unpleasant for White Guelfs too and that any trace
of his passage had carefully been removed. In 1313
Arrigo died, and with him any residual hope for
Dante to see Florence again. He returned to
Verona, where Cangrande Della Scala allowed him to
live in a certain security and, presumably, in a
fair amount of prosperity. Cangrande was admitted
to Dante\'s Paradise (Paradiso XVII, 76).

In 1315, Florence was forced by Uguccione della
Faggiuola (the military officer controlling the
town) to grant an amnesty to people in exile.
Dante too was in the list of citizens to be
pardoned. But Florence required that, apart from
paying a sum of money, these citizens agreed be
treated as public offenders in a religious
ceremony. Dante refused this outrageous formula,
and preferred to remain in exile.

When Uguccione finally defeated Florence, Dante\'s
death sentence was converted into confinement, at
the sole condition that he go to Florence to swear
that he would never enter the town again. Dante
didn\'t go. His condemnation to death was
confirmed and extended to his sons.

Dante still hoped late in life that he might be
invited back to Florence on honorable terms. For
Dante, exile was nearly a form of death, stripping
him of much of his identity. Dante addresses the
pain of exile in Canto XVII of Paradiso, where
Cacciaguida, his great-great-grandfather, warns
him what to expect:

    «. . . Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta
    più caramente; e questo è quello strale
    che l\'arco de lo essilio pria saetta.
    Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
    lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
    lo scendere e \'l salir per l\'altrui scale .
. .»

    \". . . You shall leave everything you love
most:
    this is the arrow that the bow of exile
    shoots first. You are to know the bitter
taste
    of others\' bread, how salt it is, and know
    how hard a path it is for one who goes
    ascending and descending others\' stairs . .
.\"

Paradiso, XVII, 55-60. As for the hope of
returning to Florence, he describes it wistfully,
as if he had already accepted its impossibility,
in Canto XXV of Paradiso:

    Se mai continga che \'l poema sacro
    al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra,
    sì che m\'ha fatto per molti anni macro,
    vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra
    del bello ovile ov\'io dormi\' agnello,
    nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra;
    con altra voce omai, con altro vello
    ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte
    del mio battesmo prenderò \'l cappello . . .

    If it should happen . . . if this sacred poem
    this work so shared by heaven and earth
    that it has made me lean these long years
    can ever overcome the cruelty
    that bars me from the fair fold where I
slept,
    a lamb opposed to wolves that war on it,
    by then with other voice, with other fleece,
    I shall return as poet and put on
    at my baptismal font, the laurel crown . . .

Paradiso, XXV, 1-9. Of course it never happened;
his bones are still found in Ravenna, not
Florence.

Guido Novello da Polenta, prince of Ravenna,
invited him there in 1318, and he accepted the
offer. Here he finished Paradise and, soon after,
he died, perhaps of malaria. This was in 1321 (at
the age of 56) and was buried in the Church of San
Pier Maggiore (later called San Francesco).
Bernardo Bembo, praetor of Venice, in 1483 took
care of his remains by organising a better tomb.

On the grave, some verses of Bernardo Canaccio, a
friend of Dante, dedicated to Florence:

    parvi Florentia mater amoris
    \"Florence, mother of little love\"


Works
Dante, poised between the mountain of Purgatorio
and the city of Florence, displays the famous
incipit Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita in a
detail of Domenico di Michelino\'s painting,
Florence 1465.
Enlarge
Dante, poised between the mountain of Purgatorio
and the city of Florence, displays the famous
incipit Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita in a
detail of Domenico di Michelino\'s painting,
Florence 1465.

The Divine Comedy describes Dante\'s journey
through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio),
and Paradise (Paradiso), guided first by the Roman
epic poet Virgil and then by his beloved Beatrice.
While the vision of Hell, the Inferno, is vivid
for modern readers, the theological niceties
presented in the other books require a certain
amount of patience and scholarship to understand.
Purgatory, the most lyrical and human of the
three, also has the most poets in it; Paradiso,
the most heavily theological, has the most
ecstatic mystic passages, in which Dante tries to
describe what he confesses he is unable to
convey.

Dante wrote the Comedy in his regional dialect. By
creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic
purpose, he established that the Italian language
was suitable for the highest sort of expression,
and simultaneously established the Tuscan dialect
as the standard for Italian.

Other works include De vulgari eloquentia (\"On
the Eloquence of Vernacular\"), on vernacular
literature, and the La Vita Nuova (\"The New
Life\"), the story of his love for Beatrice
Portinari, who also served as the ultimate symbol
of salvation in the Comedy. The book contains love
poems in Tuscan, not a new thing; the vernacular
had been used for lyric works before. But it also
contains Dante\'s learned comments on his own work
and these too are in the vernacular, instead of
the Latin that was almost universally used.


Note: References to La divina commedia are as
follows: (Inferno, XV, 76) = (book, canto, verse)