Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 into a family of minor nobility. As a boy he met Beatrice Portinari, whom he loved from afar and later celebrated in his poems; she died in 1290, and his book La Vita Nuova tells the story of his love for her. Dante studied philosophy and poetry, fought for Florence at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289, and became active in the city's politics, serving as one of its priors in 1300. In the conflicts between rival factions, he was exiled in 1302 while away from the city and never returned. He spent the rest of his life wandering among Italian courts, including Verona and Ravenna. In exile he wrote the Divine Comedy, an epic poem describing a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice. Writing it in Tuscan Italian rather than Latin helped make that language the basis of modern Italian. He also wrote De Monarchia, on politics. He died in Ravenna in 1321.

Dante Alighieri is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Catholic; his Divine Comedy is a Christian poem, and a pope praised him in a 1921 encyclical. Source: Wikipedia