Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri lived from 1265 until 1321 and was a famous Italian writer of the never dying work of art The Divine Comedy.

He was born in Florence and his parents were Alighieri di Bellinciona and Bella. He was born in one of the oldest noble families and a few years after he was born his mother died. His father re-married again.

He was the biggest Italian national poet. He participated actively in the political life but after the opposite side won he lived in exile until he died. He was a politician, philosopher, the creator of the Italian literary language and a poet above all. He has left behind a lot of works in which he stated his views about the Italian literary language.

His first work was "La vita nuova" where he celebrated the beauty of Beatrice. It was written in prose and a ballad was inserted in it. Based on the idealized concept of love and the spirit of "dolce stil nuoco" Beatrice became a divine symbol.

Dante started working on The Divine Comedy in 1307 and it became the biggest accomplishment of the medieval literature and one of the biggest creations in the history. Dante walked us through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and brought to life many characters from mythical creatures to his contemporaries.

Even though it belonged to the Middle Ages, The Divine Comedy had in it the critic of the new ages that do not fear to attack the Church and priests. In it Dante stated the human weaknesses and humans nature with a lot of understanding. This work of art created a great impact on the development of the European literature.