Dante Alighieri was born in Firenze in 1265. He had the misfortune of being the son of a Guelph father and a Ghibelline mother. These two factions were at war with one another. Later on the Guelphs would split into two more factions, the white and the black. This all played a large part in Dante’s life, but Grams has always been more interested in his tragic love life.
When Dante was 9 years, he saw Beatrice Portinari for the first time. He fell totally in love with her. She married another and so did Dante. That’s how it was then, people didn’t marry for love. Beatrice died when Dante was 25 years old and he wrote about his love for her in “Vita Nuova.”
Things went from bad to worse for Dante after this. The White and Black Guelphs feuded. It ended up with his expulsion from Firenze. He spent the rest of his days wandering through other parts of Tuscany. Well, not wandering per se, he had jobs like being an emissary for Ravenna to Venice. He found many wealthy and powerful patrons. He needed them because he insisted in writing in Italian rather than Latin. This just wasn’t done, but Dante did it.
And, he wrote the "Divina Commedia" an allegory of the human condition. It mirrors his life, though he didn’t get to know Paradise. Dante died in Ravenna in 1321, never having been able to go back to Firenze again.
Here’s the irony: the Florentines erected the statue of Dante in the picture next to the church of Santa Croce. The plaque on the pedestal translates roughly, “Dante Alighieri, An Italian!” He was actually buried in Ravenna the city that had adopted him.
Maybe the placement of the statue was an appropriate choice: Santa Croce was built outside the original city walls and was the church of the working people, people who probably always spoke the vernacular Italian that Dante wrote in.
Now here’s an interesting little sidebar: the Librarian of the National library in Firenze found an envelope in 1999. It was in an old book. On the envelope it said that it contained Dante’s ashes. Sure enough, it had a few ashes in it. Whether they’re Dante’s or not, no one knows.
Through me is the way to the sorrowful city.
Through me is the way to eternal suffering.
Through me is the way to the lost people.
Abandon all hope, you who enter!
Inferno, Canto 3,1.1
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