Dante Alighieri

Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. 1450 (Uffizi Gallery)
Born	c. June 1, 1265
Died	September 13/14, 1321

Durante degli Alighieri, better known as Dante Alighieri or simply Dante, (c. June 1, 1265 – September 13/14, 1321) was an Italian Florentine poet. His greatest work, la Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), is considered the greatest literary statement produced in Europe during the Middle Ages.

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Life

Dante was born in 1265, and he tells us he was born under the sign of Gemini, placing his birthday between May 18th and June 17th. As an infant, Dante may have been originally christened 'Durante' in Florence's Baptistery, and the name Dante could be a shortened version of that name.

Dante's more ancient documented portrait, fresco in Palazzo dei Giudici, Florence (an older protrait, very similar to these is in the chapel of the Bargello palace in Florence).

He was born into the prominent Alighieri family of Florence, with loyalties to the Guelfs, a political alliance that supported the Papacy, involved in complex opposition to the Ghibellines, who were backed by the Holy Roman Emperor. These factions fashioned their names after the ones of opposing factions of German Imperial politics, centered around the noble families of Welfen and Weibelingen, but adapting their meaning to the Italian political arena. After the defeat of the Ghibellines by the Guelfs in 1289, the Guelfs themselves were divided into White Guelfs, who were wary of Papal influence, and Black Guelfs who continued to support the Papacy. Dante (a White Guelf) pretended that his family descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the earliest relative he can mention by name is Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), of no earlier than about 1100.

Dante's father, Alighiero de Bellincione, was a White Guelf who suffered no reprisals after the Ghibellines won the Battle of Montaperti. This suggests that Alighiero or his family enjoyed some protective prestige and status.

The poet's mother was Donna Gabriella degli Abati. She died when Dante was 5 or 6 years old, and Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. (It is uncertain whether he really married her, as widowers had social limitations in these matters.) This woman definitely bore two children, Dante's brother Francesco and sister Tana (Gaetana).

When Dante was 12, in 1277, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of Messer Manetto Donati. Contracting marriages at this early age was quite common, and involved a formal ceremony, including contracts signed before a notary.

Dante had several sons with Gemma. As often happens with famous people, many people later claimed to be Dante's offspring; however, it is likely that Jacopo, Pietro, Giovanni, Gabrielle Alighieri, and Antonia were truly his children. Antonia became a nun with the name of Sister Beatrice.

Education and poetry

Dante Alighieri

Not much is known about Dante's education, and it is presumed he studied at home. We know he studied Tuscan poetry, at a time when the Sicilian School (Scuola poetica siciliana), a cultural group from Sicily, was becoming known in Tuscany. His interests brought him to discover Provençal minstrels and poets, and Latin culture (with an obvious particular devotion to Virgil).

It should be underlined that during the "Secoli Bui" (Dark Ages), Italy had become a mosaic of small states, so Sicily was as far (culturally and politically) from Tuscany as Provence was: the regions did not share a language, culture, or easy communications. Nevertheless, we can assume that Dante was a keen up-to-date intellectual with international interests.

When 18, he met Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, Cino da Pistoia, and soon after Brunetto Latini; together they became the leaders of Dolce Stil Novo ("The Sweet New Style"). Brunetto later received a special mention in the Divine Comedy (Inferno, XV, 82), for what he had taught Dante. Other studies are reported, or deduced from Vita Nuova or the Comedy, regarding painting and music.

When he was nine years old he met Beatrice Portinari, daughter of Folco Portinari, with whom he fell in love "at first sight", and apparently without even having spoken to her. He saw her frequently after age 18, often exchanging greetings in the street, but he never knew her well, as he was setting the example for 'Courtful love' (hardly spoke to her, but still loved her). It is hard to decipher of what this love consisted, but something extremely important for Italian culture was happening: as it is in the sign of this love that Dante gave his imprint to the Stil Novo and would lead poets and writers to discover the themes of Love (Amore), which had never been so emphasized before. Love for Beatrice (as in a different manner Petrarca would show for his Laura) would apparently be the reason for poetry and for living, together with political passions.

When Beatrice died in 1290, Dante tried to find a refuge in Latin literature. From the Convivio we know that he had read Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae and Cicero's De amicitia. He then dedicated himself to philosophical studies at religious schools like the Dominican one in Santa Maria Novella. He took part in the disputes that the two principal mendicant orders (Franciscan and Dominican) publicly or indirectly held in Florence, the former explaining the doctrine of the mystics and of San Bonaventura, the latter presenting Saint Thomas Aquinas' theories. His "excessive" passion for philosophy would later be criticized by the character Beatrice, in Purgatorio, the second book of the Comedy.

Exile and death

Statue of Dante in Florence

Boniface quickly sent away the other representatives and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301) Charles de Valois was entering Florence with Black Guelfs, who in the next six days destroyed everything and killed most of their enemies. A new government was installed of Black Guelfs, and Messer Cante dei Gabrielli di Gubbio was appointed Podestà of Florence. Dante was condemned to exile for two years, and to pay a large sum of money. The poet was still in Rome, where the Pope had "suggested" he stay, and was therefore considered an absconder. He could not pay his fine and was finally condemned to perpetual exile. If he were ever caught by Florentine soldiers, he would have been summarily executed.

The poet took part in several attempts by the White Guelfs to regain the power they had lost, but these failed due to treachery. Dante, bitter at the treatment he had received at the hands of his enemies, also grew disgusted with the infighting and ineffectiveness of his erstwhile allies, and vowed to become a party of one. At this point he began sketching the foundations for the Divine Comedy, a work in 100 cantos, divided into three books of thirty-three cantos each, with a single introductory canto. Thirty-three cantos were because three was a sacred number due to the Holy Trinity. Certainly his literary work reflects his weary contempt for the banality of most men.

He went to Verona as a guest of Bartolomeo Della Scala, then moved to Sarzana (Liguria), and after this he is supposed to have lived for some time in Lucca with Madame Gentucca, who made his stay comfortable (and was later gratefully mentioned in Purgatorio, XXIV, 37). Some speculative sources say that he was in Paris, too, between 1308 and 1310. Other sources, even less trustworthy, take him to Oxford.

In 1310 Henry VII of Luxembourg, King of the Romans (Germany), was invading Italy; Dante saw in him the chance of revenge, so he wrote to him (and to other Italian princes) several public letters violently inciting them to destroy the Black Guelfs. Mixing religion and private concerns, he invoked the worst anger of God against his town, suggesting several particular targets that coincided with his personal enemies.

In Florence Baldo d'Aguglione pardoned most of the White Guelfs in exile and allowed them to come back; however, Dante had gone beyond the pale in his violent letters to Arrigo (Henry VII), and he was not recalled.

In 1312, Arrigo assaulted Florence and defeated the Black Guelfs, but there is no evidence that Dante was involved. Some say he refused to participate in the assault on his city by a foreigner; others suggest that his name had become unpleasant for White Guelfs too and that any trace of his passage had carefully been removed. In 1313 Arrigo died, and with him any residual hope for Dante to see Florence again. He returned to Verona, where Cangrande I della Scala allowed him to live in a certain security and, presumably, in a fair amount of prosperity. Cangrande was admitted to Dante's Paradise (Paradiso, XVII, 76).

The death mask of Dante Alighieri (in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)

In 1315, Florence was forced by Uguccione della Faggiuola (the military officer controlling the town) to grant an amnesty to people in exile. Dante too was in the list of citizens to be pardoned. But Florence required that, apart from paying a sum of money, these citizens agreed to be treated as public offenders in a religious ceremony. Dante refused this outrageous formula, and preferred to remain in exile.

When Uguccione finally defeated Florence, Dante's death sentence was converted into confinement, at the sole condition that he go to Florence to swear that he would never enter the town again. Dante didn't go. His condemnation to death was confirmed and extended to his sons.

Dante still hoped late in life that he might be invited back to Florence on honourable terms. For Dante, exile was nearly a form of death, stripping him of much of his identity. He addresses the pain of exile in Paradiso, XVII (55-60), where Cacciaguida, his great-great-grandfather, warns him what to expect:

As for the hope of returning to Florence, he describes it wistfully, as if he had already accepted its impossibility, (Paradiso, XXV, 1–9):

The memorial tomb for Dante Alighieri at Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze in Florence

Of course it never happened. Prince Guido Novello da Polenta invited him to Ravenna in 1318, and he accepted. He finished Paradiso, and finally died in 1321 (at the age of 56) while on the way back to Ravenna from a diplomatic mission in Venice, perhaps of malaria. Dante was buried in the Church of San Pier Maggiore (later called San Francesco). Bernardo Bembo, praetor of Venice, in 1483 took care of his remains by organizing a better tomb.

On the grave, some verses of Bernardo Canaccio, a friend of Dante, dedicated to Florence:

parvi Florentia mater amoris

"Florence, mother of little love"

Eventually, Florence came to regret Dante's exile. In 1829, a tomb was built for him in Florence in the basilica of Santa Croce. That tomb has been empty ever since, with Dante's body still remaining in its tomb in Ravenna, far from the land he loved so dearly. The front of his tomb in Florence reads Onorate l'altissimo poeta - which roughly translates as Honour the most exalted poet.

Works

Dante, poised between the mountain of purgatory and the city of Florence, displays the famous incipit Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita in a detail of Domenico di Michelino's painting, Florence 1465.

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso), guided first by the Roman epic poet Virgil and then by his beloved Beatrice. While the vision of Hell, the Inferno, is vivid for modern readers, the theological niceties presented in the other books require a certain amount of patience and scholarship to understand. Purgatorio, the most lyrical and human of the three, also has the most poets in it; Paradiso, the most heavily theological, has the most beautiful and ecstatic mystic passages, in which Dante tries to describe what he confesses he is unable to convey (e.g., when Dante looks into the face of God: "all'alta fantasia qui mancò possa" - "at this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe", Paradiso, XXXIII, 142).

Dante wrote the Comedy in his regional dialect. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression, and simultaneously established the Tuscan dialect as the standard for Italian. In French, Italian is nicknamed la langue de Dante. It often confuses readers that such a serious work would be called a "comedy". In Dante's time, all serious scholarly works were written in Latin (a tradition that would persist for several hundred years more, until the waning years of the Enlightenment) and works written in any other language were assumed to be comedic in nature. It is also the case that the word "comedy," in the classical sense, referenced works which subscribed to an ordered universe, in which events not only tended towards a happy or "amusing" ending, but an ending influenced by a Providential will that ordered all things to an ultimate good.

Other works include Convivio ("The Banquet"), a collection of poems and interpretive commentary; Monarchia, which sets out Dante's ideas on global political organization; De vulgari eloquentia ("On the Eloquence of Vernacular"), on vernacular literature; and, La Vita Nuova ("The New Life"), the story of his love for Beatrice Portinari, who also served as the ultimate symbol of salvation in the Comedy. The book contains love poems in Tuscan, not a new thing; the vernacular had been used for lyric works before. But it also contains Dante's learned comments on his own work, and these too are in the local language, instead of the Latin that was almost universally used.

Note: References to Divina Commedia are in the format (book, canto, verse), i.e., (Inferno, XV, 76).

Cultural references

Dante of Erminio Blotta, at Bd. Oroño, Rosario

Main article: Dante and his Divine Comedy in popular culture

Dante and The Divine Comedy have been a source of inspiration for countless artists for almost eight centuries. As one of the best-known and greatest artistic works in the Western tradition, its influence on culture cannot be overestimated. Some examples are listed in the related article.

Published resources

• Bonghi, Giuseppe. Glossario de Italiano Medioevale.
• Riccardo, Merlante. Dizionario della Divina Commedia. A dictionary of words used by Dante. Medieval Italian and Modern Italian.
• Gustarelli, Andrea. Dizionario Dantesco, per lo studio della Divina Commedia. Casa Editrice Malfasi, 1946. A dictionary of those words in the Divine Comedy whose meaning in Medieval Italians differs from that in Modern Italian.

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Dante Alighieri

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Dante Alighieri

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Dante Alighieri

• Works by Dante Alighieri at Project Gutenberg
• "Digital Dante" – A resource page dedicated to Dante and his works.
• The Princeton Dante Project
• The Dartmouth Dante Project
• Danteworlds at UT Austin
• Read Dante Alighieri's works on Read Print – Free books for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast.
• Henry Holiday's 'Dante and Beatrice'
• "Dante Alighieri on the Web", about his life, time, and (complete) work.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Società Dantesca Italiana (bilingual site) contains among other info a database of all the earliest manuscripts of Dante's works, with (for some) transcription of the text and page images
• Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles.
• Dante Alighieri's works: text, concordances and frequency lists
• Dante, The Vision of a Universal Superstate

Dante Societies around the World

• La Società Dante Alighieri, founded in Italy in 1889, has affiliated chapters throughout the world ("le nostre sedi"; partial website directory), including the following:
  • Dante Alighieri Society, Sydney
  • Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts
  • Association Dante Alighieri, Comité de Paris
  • Società Dante Alighieri, Comitato di Vienna
  • Società Dante Alighieri, Comitato di Berlino
• The Dante Society of America was founded in 1881 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton