DANTE (properly DURANTE) ALIGHIERE, one of the greatest poets of all time, and incomparably the greatest among the Italians, was born in Florence in 1268. The outward circumstances and fortunes of his life are involved for the most part in great uncertainty. His family was, by his own account, one of the most illustrious in the city. His father dying while Dante was young, his education devolved upon his mother, Bella. In this duty, in which she displayed great fidelity and judgment, she seems to have been counselled and aided by the great statesman, scholar, and poet, Brunetto Latini. The elements of knowledge Dante probably acquired in Florence; in riper years, he studied philosophy at Bologna and Padua. After his banishment, he pursued theology for a time at Paris, and, if Boccaccio were to be believed, even visited England. His studies, however, did not prevent him from discharging the public duties of a citizen. He fought in the successful battle with the Arentines at Campaldino in 1289, and was present at the taking of the Fortress of Caprona, 1290.
What civil offices he first held we do not know, but it is certain that he was sent on several embassies, and at last, in 1300, rose to the highest dignity of the city, being chosen one of the Priori for two months, an office that was the subsequent cause of his unhappy fortunes. Florence on the whole, belonged to the party of the Guelphs but was divided into the two factions of the Neff and the Bianchi. The contests of these factions resulted in the banishment of many of the Bianchi, and among others Dante. He never entered his native city again, and his whole subsequent life was unsettled, spent in various places, and under various protectors, at Arezzo, Verona, Padua, etc. He died on the 14th December, 1321.
As not unfrequently happens with distinguished men, an accidental circumstance in Dante's early youth had made an indelible impression on the soul of the poet, and, as he himself expresses it, awaked in him a "new life." At a family festivity he had seen Beatrice Portinaci, then eight years old, the daughter of a rich citizen, and the love that sprang up in the heart of the nine-year-old boy became the fountain of the poetical inspiration of his life. How pure, chaste, and tender his love was, is testified by the Viia Nuova, his first work, which appeared about 1300. Beatrice married a nobleman, Simone de Bardi, and died young about 1290. Dante himself married a lady named Gemma, of the powerful house of Donati.
His immortal work, the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), depicts a vision, in which the poet is conducted first by Virgil, the representative of human reason, through hell and purgatory, and then by Beatrice, the representative of human revelation; and finally by St. Bernard through the several heavens, where he beholds the triune God. The name Commedia, was given to the work by the poet himself, because, beginning with the horrible, it ends cheerfully; and because, in respect of style, it is lowly, being Written in the vulgar tongue. The epithet "Divina" was added by the admiration of after-times.
Besides the Divina Commedia, the Vita Nuova, and the De Monarchia, Dante wrote one or two other works.