Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was a poet, writer and thinker who was born in Florence around 1265 and died on 14 September 1321. He grew up in a city divided by bitter political rivalry and took part in its public life. Later he was sent into exile and never returned, and he spent his last years in other Italian cities. His love for a woman he called Beatrice shaped much of his early poetry, and his exile shaped his later work. He wrote in Italian rather than Latin, which helped establish the Tuscan dialect as a literary language for the whole country. He also wrote on language, politics and philosophy. His masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, imagines a journey through the afterlife and joins personal feeling, politics, theology and storytelling on a vast scale. It is counted among the greatest works of world literature and has influenced writers and artists for some seven centuries.