Biography

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 into the lower nobility of Florence, to Alighiero di Bellincione d'Alighiero, a moneylender. A precocious student, Dante's education focused on rhetoric and grammar. He also became enamored with a young girl, Beatrice Portinari, whose death in 1290 threw a grieving Dante into intense religious studies. Though the Alighieri family had managed to avoid entanglement in the power struggles between the Ghibelline and Guelf families for control of Florence, Dante allied himself with the democratic Guelfs and married a member of that clan, Gemma di Manetto Donati, in 1285.

After serving in the Guelf forces as a cavalryman in the Battle of Campaldino, Dante enrolled in the Guild of Doctors and Pharmacists and became politically active. He became an ambassador and a prior, but after finding himself on the opposite side of the political party in power he was forced to flee Florence in 1301, never able to return to the city of his birth. He narrowly escaped being executed for treason.

Dante left for Verona and Ravenna, where he was joined by his children. He then wrote his most famous work, "Commedia", not in scholarly Latin but in the vernacular Italian of the time, giving his countrymen a literature of their own. In it he would resurrect the love of his youth, Beatrice, giving her a place among the angels. This work would also take the author, escorted by the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro, on a grand tour to Hell and Purgatory, and later by his beloved Beatrice to Paradise. History would later judge Dante's creation to be divine. Dante Alighieri died in 1321 and was buried in Ravenna. Three sons--Pietro, Jacopo and Giovanni--and a daughter, Antonia, survived him.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Nichol (qv's & corrections by A.Nonymous)

Alighieri enjoyed careful artistic and scientific training. He lost his mother when he was ten. His father died around 1281. A few years later, Dante married the daughter of the influential Donati family, Gemma. The four children Giovanni, Pietro, Jacopo and Antonia emerged from this relationship. Dante is said to have studied in Bologna from 1287. There he made the acquaintance of poets of the new style such as Guido Guinizelli, Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia. Already as a young adult, he took part in the battle against the Aretines at Campaldino, near Florence, in 1289, which resulted in the defeat of the Ghibelline party and the victory of the Florentines. A year later he was involved in the storming of the Pisan fortress of Caprona. In the two years 1292/93 Dante wrote his work "Vita Nuova", which is about a woman named Beatrice. He is said to have met her twice in 1274 and 1283.

The poet was also politically active and was a member of the Council of Hundreds from 1295. In 1300 he was one of six priors, the chief city regents of Florence. This put him in the contemporary church-political firing line. Through his marriage into the Donati family, Dante belonged to the Pope's followers, the "Neri", the black Guelphs. However, out of personal conviction, he left the papal party and switched to the "Whites" (Bianchi), the Ghibelines. They represented the claims of the Empire against the papal rule of Pope Boniface VIII, which was to be extended to Florence. In Florence in 1301, the "Blacks", the supporters of the papal party, won the ruling majority while Dante was on a journey to Rome to see the Pope. Dante also suffered under this rule, being sentenced to a heavy fine in 1302 for subversive activities and barred from all public office.

He also had to face a two-year banishment and the threat of death by fire if he violated it. When he refused to accept the punishment, he was sentenced to death. Dante went on a journey through Italy. During this time he completed his main work, the "Divine Comedy" or in its original title "Divina Commedia". The poem in Terzinen is about the condition and life of souls after death in the three kingdoms. Accordingly, the work is divided into three sections: Hell as Inferno, Purgatory as Purgatio and Paradise as Paradiso. Each of these three sections consists of a total of 33 songs. Together with the introduction as the first canto, the poem makes up 100 cantos with 14,230 verses. In the period from 1303 to 1307 he found accommodation with Bartolomeo della Scala in Verona and with Margrave Malaspina in Lunigiana. Dante was dependent on patrons during his escape.

In the following two years he was a guest of the Counts Guidi in the Casentino. With Emperor Henry VII's Italian campaign in 1310, Dante hoped for an end to the disputes. During this time he wrote his work "Monarchia". He was expressly excluded from an amnesty the following year. With the death of Henry VII, Dante's hopes of an end to the disputes were also buried. When Dante refused a pardon in 1315, he was sentenced again. The following year his life in exile began again. He is said to have found refuge in Ravenna, where work on the third part of the "Divine Comedy" is said to have begun. The first two parts of his opulent poetry are said to have been in circulation from 1319 onwards. They have contributed significantly to his popularity. In 1320 Dante went to Verona to present a paper on a geographical dispute. The following year he went on a trip to Venice, from which he returned ill.

Dante Alighieri died in Ravenna shortly after completing his major work on September 14, 1321.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth