Dante, Alighieri

dan'te, Alighieri (1265-1321), the most eminent Italian poet. He was born at Florence and died at Ravenna. His mother was a widow of some means and social standing, able, it appears, to give him a liberal education at Bologna, Padua, Naples, Paris, and Oxford, the leading universities of that early day. He preceded Raphael and Michelangelo by two centuries, and Shakespeare by three. In his early manhood he participated in the civil discord and factional wars which drenched the streets of his native city in blood. He was married to a lady of rank, and had seven children. About 1302 his property was confiscated and he was banished from Florence to wander a beggar.

When a mere youth he fell in love with a beautiful girl named Beatrice, whose early death left him to mourn. When banishment from his beautiful home and beggary came upon him, he settled into melancholy and wrote his Divine Comedy. In this poem, the greatest literature of the Middle Ages, Dante represents himself as traveling through hell and purgatory and heaven. The shade of Virgil conducts him through the dark portal, over which was written "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," into the Inferno, the region of the damned. One of the most impressive parts of the poem is a brief description of the world's great criminals undergoing torture there. From the Inferno Dante is conducted upward to Purgatory, a mountain rising in midocean, on the opposite side of the globe. Ascending from terrace to terrace, where mortals are undergoing endurable and temporary punishment preparatory to final happiness, they reach at last the top of Purgatory, where they are stayed by a sheet of flame. Here Dante's conductor bids him farewell, telling him that Beatrice is on the other side. He plunges boldly through and comes out in a paradise of forests, flowers, soft zephyrs, fountains, songs of birds, and music. Beatrice, divinely radiant, more beautiful even than the Beatrice of his grief, guides him from scene to scene, bidding him look back now upon earth, indescribably mean and insignificant in the dark and gloomy distance. Amid the softest melody they move ever upward, entering circle within circle, until they come before the Great Throne, in whose presence all eyes are fixed on the triumphant Redeemer, forgetful of self and forgetful of the sorrows and ills of earth, mindful only of Him who is the source of light and love. Here closes the Divine Comedy, "one of the greatest monuments of human genius." Boccaccio, a friend who knew Dante well, has left the following description:

Our poet was of middle height; his face was long, his nose aquiline, his jaw large, and his under lip protruding somewhat beyond the upper. His eyes rather large than small; his hair and beard thick, crisp, and black, and his countenance sad and pensive. His gait was grave and gentlemanlike, and his bearing, in public or private, wonderfully composed and polished. In meat and drink he was most temperate. Seldom did he speak unless spoken to, though he was most eloquent. In his youth he delighted in music and singing, and was intimate with all the musicians and singers of the day. He was of marvelous capacity and the most tenacious memory; inclined to solitude and fond of study when he had time for it.