Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, son of a Florentine nobleman. At the age of nine he met Beatrice and his infatuation with her lasted until her death in 1290, despite her marriage to an-other. His earliest poems were sonnets, followed by the Danton, Georges-Jacques Vita Nuova (c. 1293), a collection of lyrics interspersed with prose, inspired by his love for Beatrice. Following political upheavals in Florence, Dante was condemned to death in 1302 and was forced to live in exile. In 1308 he began work on the epic poem The Divine Comedy, in which he describes his journey from Hell to Paradise in the three sections Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise
