He offers extensive autobiographical details in his works and, because of his political activity-which later led to his downfall and forced him into exile-he was a much documented figure during his lifetime. Although the poet’s parents never appear in his works, Dante mentions in the Paradiso an ancestor, Cacciaguida, said to have been knighted by the 12th-century king Conrad III during the Crusades.Ĭompared with many other figures of his time, there is considerable information about Dante available to historians. She died when Dante was a child, and Alighiero married a woman with whom he had already fathered at least one child. Alighiero di Bellincione, his father, was a businessman and moneylender, and Bella, his mother, a member of the influential Abati family. According to 14th-century chronicler Filippo Villani, he preferred the diminutive Dante. He never used his official name Durante, however. Florentine familyĭurante Alighieri was born in Florence in May 1265, under the astrological sign of Gemini, a detail he mentions in the Paradiso. ( This Renaissance 'superdome' in Florence took more than 100 years to build.) Peopled with figures from mythology, the Bible, and Dante’s own time, hell's descending circles (each one reserved for different sins) constitute some of the most vivid and emotionally charged scenes in world literature. Of the three sections, however, it is the lot of the souls in the Inferno that has had, by far, the greatest resonance with readers and artists. Although it recounts an actual physical journey, The Divine Comedy is also an allegory of the soul’s progress through sin (hell), penitence (purgatory), and redemption (paradise), the last being the joyful ending promised in the title. In naming his lifework Comedy, Dante employs an understanding of the word that means a narrative with a happy ending, unrelated to humor. Later, he is reunited with his beloved, Beatrice, who guides him up to purgatory, and then to Paradise, where, in a moment of ecstasy, Dante glimpses God. The Divine Comedy is a long poem recounting the author’s journey among the damned in hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Ĭompleted just before Dante died in 1321, it consists of three parts- Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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