Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an early Renaissance poet, born to a prominent family in Florence. The Italian town of Florence was considered the cradle of the Renaissance by 1425, but Venice and Rome became just as successful by the early 1500s.

Dante wrote in the Italian language of the time (the vernacular) rather than ancient Latin. Dante described the path of a soul to salvation in "The Divine Comedy," in which Dante travels through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso). In this journey, Dante is first guided by the Roman epic poet Virgil, and then he is later guided by girl he loved as a youth, named Beatrice, who had tragically died.