Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri is considered the greatest Italian poet and one of the best authors of universal literature. His famous work “The Divine Comedy” has reached very high level of artistic value of beauty and refinement and it is so interesting and suggestive that after centuries we still read it. In his works the typical features of the Middle Age are reflected and he was able to describe them in an extraordinary synthesis. Dante was born in Florence from a family of lesser nobility in 1265. In 1285 he got married, for a family decision, to Gemma Donati and they had three children. Dante participated in the battle of Campoldino and afterwards he devoted himself to the political life, holding various positions in the municipality of Florence. In that period in Florence ,as in many others municipalities there were political struggles between Guelphs (supporters of the Papacy) and Ghibellines (supporters of the Empire). Dante fought alongside the white Guelphs following the defeat of his political party. He was unjustly sentenced to two years of exile from Florence but later he was forever forbidden to return to the city on pain of death.  Dante never saw his beloved Florence again. Dante travelled around most of Tuscany from one court to another and this phase of his life, until his death in 1321, was very painful. Dante in his works expressed deep pain for the exile and for the political injustice which resulted in his definitive removal from Florence. He wrote poems in poetry and prose: in the “New Life “he tells his love for Beatrice, a woman so perfect as to seem like an angel. Others works are”Rhymes”and (The vulgari Eloquentia) “the Eloquence of the Vernacular”. However the work that occupied a large part of his life as an artist and that made him the greatest poet of all time is “The Divine Comedy” . He wrote it to free man from sin and through it he wanted to punish the excessive greed which had led to the condemnation of innocent people. This poem is amazing because the three three books, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, chronicles the Poet’s fictional journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. Dante’s allegorical journey represents the christian vision of men’s life from the sin to the hope of resurrection.