Biography

Dante Alighieri (Italian: Dante Alighieri), full name Durante degli Alighieri (second half of May 1265 - on the night of September 13-14, 1321) - the greatest Italian poet, thinker, theologian, one of the founders of the literary Italian language, political figure. The creator of the “Comedy” (later receiving the epithet “Divine”, introduced by Boccaccio), which provided a synthesis of late medieval culture.

In Florence

According to family tradition, Dante's ancestors came from the Roman family of Elisei, who participated in the founding of Florence. Cacciaguida, Dante's great-great-grandfather, participated in the crusade of Conrad III (1147-1149), was knighted by him and died in battle with the Muslims. Cacciaguida was married to a lady from the Lombard family of Aldighieri da Fontana. The name "Aldighieri" was transformed into "Alighieri"; This is how one of the sons of Kachchagvida was named. The son of this Alighieri, Bellincione, Dante's grandfather, expelled from Florence during the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, returned to his hometown in 1266, after the defeat of Manfred of Sicily at Benevento. Alighieri II, Dante's father, apparently did not take part in the political struggle and remained in Florence.

Exact date of birth Dante unknown. According to Boccaccio, Dante was born in May 1265. Dante himself reports about himself (Comedy, Paradise, 22) that he was born under the sign of Gemini. Modern sources most often give dates for the second half of May 1265. It is also known that Dante was baptized on May 26, 1265 (on the first Holy Saturday after his birth) under the name Durante.

Dante's first mentor was the then famous poet and the scientist Brunetto Latini. The place where Dante studied is unknown, but he gained extensive knowledge of ancient and medieval literature, the natural sciences, and was familiar with the heretical teachings of that time. Dante's closest friend was the poet Guido Cavalcanti. Dante dedicated many poems and fragments of the poem “New Life” to him.

The first official mention of Dante Alighieri as a public figure dates back to 1296 and 1297; already in 1300 or 1301 he was elected prior. In 1302 he was expelled along with his party of white Guelphs and never saw Florence again, dying in exile.

Years of exile

The years of exile were years of wandering for Dante. Already at that time he was a lyric poet among the Tuscan poets of the “new style” - Cino from Pistoia, Guido Cavalcanti and others. His “La Vita Nuova (New Life)” had already been written; his exile made him more serious and strict. He starts his “Feast” (“Convivio”), an allegorical scholastic commentary on the fourteen canzones. But “Convivio” was never finished: only the introduction and interpretation to the three canzones were written. The Latin treatise on the popular language, or eloquence (“De vulgari eloquentia”), is also unfinished, ending at the 14th chapter of the second book.

During the years of exile, three cants of the Divine Comedy were created gradually and under the same working conditions. The time at which each of them was written can only be approximately determined. Paradise was completed in Ravenna, and there is nothing incredible in Boccaccio’s story that after the death of Dante Alighieri, his sons for a long time could not find the last thirteen songs, until, according to legend, Dante dreamed of his son Jacopo and told him where they lay.

There is very little factual information about the fate of Dante Alighieri; his trace has been lost over the years. At first, he found shelter with the ruler of Verona, Bartolomeo della Scala; The defeat in 1304 of his party, which tried by force to achieve installation in Florence, doomed him to a long wandering around Italy. He later arrived in Bologna, in Lunigiana and Casentino, in 1308-1309. ended up in Paris, where he spoke with honor at public debates, common in universities of that time. It was in Paris that Dante received the news that Emperor Henry VII was going to Italy. The ideal dreams of his “Monarchy” were resurrected in him with renewed vigor; he returned to Italy (probably in 1310 or early 1311), seeking renewal for her and the return of civil rights for himself. His “message to the peoples and rulers of Italy” is full of these hopes and enthusiastic confidence, however, the idealistic emperor died suddenly (1313), and on November 6, 1315, Ranieri di Zaccaria of Orvietto, King Robert’s viceroy in Florence, confirmed the decree of exile regarding Dante Alighieri, his sons and many others, condemning them to execution if they fell into the hands of the Florentines.

From 1316-1317 he settled in Ravenna, where he was summoned to retire by the lord of the city, Guido da Polenta. Here, in the circle of children, among friends and fans, the songs of Paradise were created.

Death

In the summer of 1321, Dante, as an ambassador of the ruler of Ravenna, went to Venice to conclude peace with the Republic of St. Mark. On the way back, Dante fell ill with malaria and died in Ravenna on the night of September 13-14, 1321.

Dante was buried in Ravenna; the magnificent mausoleum that Guido da Polenta prepared for him was not erected. The modern tomb (also called the “mausoleum”) was built in 1780. The familiar portrait of Dante Alighieri is devoid of authenticity: Boccaccio depicts him with a beard instead of the legendary clean-shaven one, however, in general, his image corresponds to our traditional idea: an elongated face with an aquiline nose, large eyes , wide cheekbones and a prominent lower lip; always sad and thoughtfully focused.

Brief chronology of life and creativity

1265 - Dante is born.
1274 - first meeting with Beatrice.
1283 - second meeting with Beatrice.
1290 - death of Beatrice.
1292 - creation of the story “New Life” (“La Vita Nuova”).
1296/97 - the first mention of Dante as a public figure.
1298 - Dante's marriage to Gemma Donati.
1300/01 - Prior of Florence.
1302 - expelled from Florence.
1304-1307 - “Feast”.
1304-1306 - treatise “On Popular Eloquence.”
1306-1321 - creation of the Divine Comedy.
1308/09 - Paris.
1310/11 - return to Italy.
1315 - confirmation of the expulsion of Dante and his sons from Florence.
1316-1317 - settled in Ravenna.
1321 - how the ambassador of Ravenna goes to Venice.
On the night of September 13 to September 14, 1321, he dies on the way to Ravenna.

Personal life

In the poem “New Life,” Dante sang about his first youthful love, Beatrice Portinari, who died in 1290 at the age of 24. Dante and Beatrice became a symbol of love, like Petrarch and Laura, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet.

In 1274, nine-year-old Dante fell in love with a girl of eight years old, the daughter of a neighbor, Beatrice Portinari, at a May festival - this is his first biographical memory. He had seen her before, but the impression from this meeting was renewed in him when nine years later (in 1283) he saw her again as a married woman and this time became interested in her. Beatrice becomes the “mistress of his thoughts” for the rest of his life, a wonderful symbol of that morally uplifting feeling that he continued to cherish in her image, when Beatrice had already died (in 1290), and he himself entered into one of those business marriages, according to political calculation , which were accepted at that time.

Dante Alighieri's family sided with the Florentine Cerchi party, which was at war with the Donati party. However, Dante Alighieri married Gemma Donati, daughter of Manetto Donati. The exact date of his marriage is unknown, the only information is that in 1301 he already had three children (Pietro, Jacopo and Antonia). When Dante Alighieri was expelled from Florence, Gemma remained in the city with her children, preserving the remnants of her father's property.

Later, when Dante Alighieri composed his “Comedy” in glorification of Beatrice, Gemma was not mentioned in it even a single word. In recent years he lived in Ravenna; his sons, Jacopo and Pietro, poets, his future commentators, and his daughter Antonia gathered around him; only Gemma lived away from the whole family. Boccaccio, one of the first biographers of Dante Alighieri, summarized all this: as if Dante Alighieri married under duress and persuasion, and therefore during the long years of exile he never thought of calling his wife to him. Beatrice determined the tone of his feelings, the experience of exile - his social and political views and their archaism.

Creation

Dante Alighieri, a thinker and poet, constantly looking for a fundamental basis for everything that happened in himself and around him, it was this thoughtfulness, thirst for general principles, certainty, internal integrity, passion of the soul and boundless imagination that determined the qualities of his poetry, style, imagery and abstractness .

Love for Beatrice acquired a mysterious meaning for him; he filled every work with it. Her idealized image occupies a significant place in Dante's poetry. Dante's first works date back to the 1280s. In 1292, he wrote a story about the love that renewed him: “New Life” (“La Vita Nuova”), composed of sonnets, canzones and a prose story-commentary about his love for Beatrice. “A New Life” is considered the first autobiography in the history of world literature. Already in exile, Dante writes the treatise “The Feast” (Il convivio, 1304–1307).

Alighieri also created political treatises. Later, Dante found himself in a whirlpool of parties, and was even an inveterate municipalist; but he had a need to understand for himself the basic principles of political activity, so he wrote his Latin treatise “On the Monarchy” (“De Monarchia”). This work is a kind of apotheosis of the humanitarian emperor, next to which he would like to place an equally ideal papacy. Dante Alighieri the politician spoke in his treatise “On the Monarchy”. Dante the poet was reflected in the works “New Life”, “The Feast” and “The Divine Comedy”.

"New Life"

When Beatrice died, Dante Alighieri was inconsolable: she had nurtured his feelings for so long, and had become so close to his best sides. He recalls the story of his short-lived love; her last idealistic moments, on which death left its mark, involuntarily drown out the rest: in the choice of lyrical plays, inspired at different times by love for Beatrice and giving the outline of the Renewed Life, there is an unconscious intentionality; everything really playful is eliminated, such as sonnet about a good wizard; it didn't fit with the general tone of the memories. “Renewed Life” consists of several sonnets and canzones, interspersed with a short story, like a biographical thread. There are no facts as such in this biography; but every sensation, every meeting with Beatrice, her smile, refusal of greetings - everything takes on a serious meaning, which the poet thinks about as a secret that has happened to him; and not over him alone, for Beatrice is generally love, lofty, uplifting. After the first spring dates, the thread of reality begins to get lost in the world of aspirations and expectations, mysterious correspondences of the numbers three and nine and prophetic visions, lovingly and sadly, as if in an anxious consciousness that all this will not last long. Thoughts of death that came to him during his illness involuntarily take him to Beatrice; he closed his eyes and delirium begins: he sees women, they walk with their hair down and say: you too will die! Terrible images whisper: you are dead. The delirium intensifies, Dante Alighieri no longer knows where he is: new visions: women walk, grief-stricken and crying; the sun darkened and the stars appeared, pale, dim: they, too, shed tears; birds fall dead in flight, the earth trembles, someone passes by and says: don’t you really know anything? your sweetheart has left this world. Dante Alighieri cries, a host of angels appears to him, they rush to heaven with the words: “Hosanna in the highest”; there is a light cloud in front of them. And at the same time, his heart tells him: your sweetheart has really died. And it seems to him that he is going to look at her; women cover it with a white veil; her face is calm, as if it says: I have been honored to contemplate the source of the world (§ XXIII). One day, Dante Alighieri began writing a canzone in which he wanted to depict Beatrice’s beneficial influence on him. He began and probably did not finish, at least he reports only a fragment from it (§ XXVIII): at this time the news of Beatrice’s death was brought to him, and the next paragraph of the “Renewed Life” begins with the words of Jeremiah (Lamentations I): “how lonely the city is once crowded! He became like a widow; the great among the nations, the prince over the regions, became a tributary.” In his affect, the loss of Beatrice seems to him public; he notifies eminent people of Florence about it and also begins with the words of Jeremiah (§ XXXI). On the anniversary of her death, he sits and draws on a tablet: the figure of an angel comes out (§ XXXV).

Another year has passed: Dante is sad, but at the same time seeks consolation in the serious work of thought, reads with difficulty Boethius’s “On the Consolation of Philosophy”, hears for the first time that Cicero wrote about the same thing in his discussion “On Friendship” (Convivio II, 13 ). His grief subsided so much that when one young beautiful lady looked at him with compassion, condoling with him, some new, unclear feeling awoke in him, full of compromises with the old, not yet forgotten. He begins to assure himself that the same love that makes him shed tears resides in that beauty. Every time she met him, she looked at him in the same way, turning pale, as if under the influence of love; it reminded him of Beatrice: after all, she was just as pale. He feels that he is beginning to look at the stranger and that, whereas before her compassion brought tears to him, now he does not cry. And he comes to his senses, reproaches himself for the unfaithfulness of his heart; he is hurt and ashamed. Beatrice appeared to him in a dream, dressed in the same way as the first time he saw her as a girl. It was the time of year when pilgrims passed through Florence in droves, heading to Rome to venerate the miraculous image. Dante returned to his old love with all the passion of mystical passion; he addresses the pilgrims: they go thinking, perhaps about the fact that they left their homes in their homeland; from their appearance one can conclude that they are from afar. And it must be from afar: they walk through an unknown city and do not cry, as if they do not know the reasons for the common grief. “If you stop and listen to me, you will leave in tears; so my yearning heart tells me, Florence has lost its Beatrice, and what a person can say about her will make everyone cry” (§XLI). And “Renewed Life” ends with the poet’s promise to himself not to speak anymore about her, the blessed one, until he is able to do it in a manner worthy of her.

"Feast"

Dante’s feeling for Beatrice appeared so highly elevated and pure in the final melodies of “The Renewed Life” that it seems to prepare the definition of love in his “Feast”: “this is the spiritual unity of the soul with the beloved object (III, 2); rational love, characteristic only of man (as opposed to other related affects); this is the pursuit of truth and virtue” (III, 3). Not everyone was privy to this hidden understanding: for most, Dante was simply an amorous poet who dressed ordinary earthly passion with its delights and downfalls in mystical colors; he turned out to be unfaithful to the lady of his heart, he could be reproached for inconstancy (III, 1), and he felt this reproach as a heavy reproach, as a shame (I, 1).

The treatise “The Feast” (Il convivio, 1304–1307) became the poet’s transition from the chanting of love to philosophical themes. Dante Alighieri was a religious man and did not experience those acute moral and mental fluctuations, reflected in the “Symposium”. This treatise occupies a middle place in the chronological sense in the development of Dante's consciousness, between the New Life and the Divine Comedy. The connection and object of development is Beatrice, at the same time a feeling, an idea, a memory, and a principle, united in one image.

Dante's philosophical studies coincided with the period of his grief over Beatrice: he lived in a world of abstractions and allegorical images that expressed them; It is not for nothing that the compassionate beauty raises the question in him: is it not in her that love that makes him suffer for Beatrice. This fold of thoughts explains the unconscious process by which the real biography of the Renewed Life was transformed: the Madonna of Philosophy prepared the way, returned to the apparently forgotten Beatrice.

"The Divine Comedy"

Analysis of the work

When, in the 35th year (“halfway through his life”), questions of practice surrounded Dante with their disappointments and inevitable betrayal of the ideal, and he himself found himself in their whirlpool, the boundaries of his introspection expanded, and questions of public morality took place in him along with questions of personal prosperity. Considering himself, he considers his society. It seems to him that everyone is lost in the dark forest of delusions, like he himself in the first song of the Divine Comedy, and everyone’s path to the light is blocked by the same symbolic animals: the lynx - voluptuousness, the lion - pride, the she-wolf - greed. The latter in particular has taken over the world; maybe someday a liberator will appear, a saint, a non-covetous one, who, like a greyhound dog (Veltro), will drive her into the bowels of hell; this will be the salvation of poor Italy. But the paths of personal salvation are open to everyone; reason, self-knowledge, science lead a person to an understanding of the truth revealed by faith, to divine grace and love.

This is the same formula as in the "Renewed Life", corrected by the Convivio worldview. Beatrice was already ready to become a symbol of active grace; but reason and science will now be presented not in the scholastic image of the “Madonna of Philosophy,” but in the image of Virgil. He led his Aeneas into the kingdom of shadows; now he will be Dante's guide while he, a pagan, is allowed to go to deliver him into the hands of the poet Statius, who in the Middle Ages was considered a Christian; he will lead him to Beatrice. Thus, wandering through the three afterlife kingdoms is added to wandering in the dark forest. The connection between one and the other motive is somewhat external, educational: wandering through the abodes of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise is not a way out of the vale of earthly delusions, but edification by examples of those who found this way out, or did not find it, or stopped halfway. In an allegorical sense, the plot of the “Divine Comedy” is a person, since, acting righteously or unrighteously by virtue of his free will, he is subject to rewarding or punishing Justice; the purpose of the poem is to "lead people from their distressed state to a state of bliss." This is what it says in the message to Can Grande della Scala, the ruler of Verona, to whom Dante allegedly dedicated the last part of his comedy, interpreting its literal and hidden allegorical meaning. This message is suspected of being Dantean; but already the oldest commentators on comedy, including Dante’s son, used it, although without naming the author; one way or another, the views of the message were formed in the immediate vicinity of Dante, in a circle of people close to him.

Afterlife visions and walks are one of the favorite subjects of the old apocrypha and medieval legend. They mysteriously tuned up the imagination, frightened and beckoned with the rough realism of torment and the monotonous luxury of heavenly dishes and shining round dances. This literature is familiar to Dante, but he read Virgil, thought about the Aristotelian distribution of passions, the church ladder of sins and virtues - and his sinners, hopeful and blessed, settled down in a harmonious, logically thought-out system; his psychological instinct told him the correspondence of crime and righteous punishment, poetic tact - real images that far left behind the dilapidated images of legendary visions.

The entire afterlife turned out to be a complete building, the architecture of which was calculated in every detail, the definitions of space and time are distinguished by mathematical and astronomical accuracy; the name of Christ rhymes only with itself or is not mentioned at all, as well as the name of Mary, in the abode of sinners. There is conscious, mysterious symbolism throughout, as in “Renewed Life”; the number three and its derivative, nine, reign unchallenged: a three-line stanza (terza), three edges of the Comedy; minus the first, introductory song, there are 33 songs for Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and each of the edgings ends with the same word: stars (stelle); three symbolic wives, three colors in which Beatrice is clothed, three symbolic beasts, three mouths of Lucifer and the same number of sinners devoured by him; threefold distribution of Hell with nine circles, etc.; the seven ledges of Purgatory and the nine celestial spheres. All this may seem petty if you don’t think about the worldview of time, a brightly conscious, to the point of pedantry, feature of Dante’s worldview; all this can only stop an attentive reader from reading the poem coherently, and all this is connected with another, this time poetic sequence, which makes us admire the sculptural certainty of Hell, the picturesque, deliberately pale tones of Purgatory and the geometric outlines of Paradise, turning into the harmony of heaven.

This is how the scheme of the afterlife was transformed in the hands of Dante, perhaps the only medieval poet who mastered a ready-made plot not for external literary purposes, but to express his personal content. He himself got lost halfway through his life; Before him, a living person, not before the spirit seer of the old legend, not before the writer of the edifying story or the parodist of the fabliaux, the regions of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise unfolded, which he populated not only with traditional images of the legend, but also with faces of living modernity and recent times. He carries out judgment over them, which he carried out over himself from the height of his personal and social criteria: relations of knowledge and faith, empire and papacy; he executes their representatives if they are unfaithful to his ideal. Dissatisfied with modernity, he seeks its renewal in the moral and social norms of the past; in this sense, he is laudator temporis acti in the conditions and relationships of life, which Boccaccio sums up in his Decameron: some thirty years separate him from the last songs of the Divine Comedy. But Dante needs principles; look at them and walk past! - Virgil tells him when they pass by people who have not left a memory on earth, on whom Divine Justice and Mercy will not look, because they were cowardly, unprincipled (Hell, III, 51). No matter how highly tuned Dante’s worldview may be, the title of “singer of justice” that he gives himself (De Vulg. El. II, 2) was self-delusion: he wanted to be an unwashed judge, but passion and partisanship carried him away, and his afterlife is full of injustice condemned or exalted beyond measure. Boccaccio talks about him, shaking his head, how he used to get so angry in Ravenna when some woman or child scolded the Ghibellines that he was ready to throw stones at them. This may be an anecdote, but in Canto XXXII of the Inferno, Dante pulls the traitor Bocca’s hair to find out his name; promises another under a terrible oath (“may I fall into the depths of the hellish glacier,” Hell XXXIII. 117) to cleanse his frozen eyes, and when he identified himself, he does not fulfill the promise with conscious malice (loc. cit. v. 150 et seq. Hell VIII, 44 et seq.). Sometimes the poet gained an advantage in him over the bearer of the principle, or personal memories took possession of him, and the principle was forgotten; the best flowers of Dante's poetry grew in moments of such oblivion. Dante himself apparently admires the grandiose image of Capaneus, silently and gloomily prostrated under the fiery rain and in his torment challenging Zeus to battle (Hell, p. XIV). Dante punished him for pride, Francesca and Paolo (Hell, V) - for the sin of voluptuousness; but he surrounded them with such poetry, was so deeply moved by their story, that participation bordered on sympathy. Pride and love are passions that he himself recognizes as his own, from which he is cleansed, ascending along the ledges of the Purgatory Mountain to Beatrice; she has become spiritualized into a symbol, but in her reproaches to Dante in the midst of an earthly paradise one can feel the human note of “Renewed Life” and the infidelity of the heart caused by a real beauty, not by Madonna-philosophy. And pride did not leave him: the self-awareness of a poet and a convinced thinker is natural. “Follow your star and you will achieve a glorious goal,” Brunetto Latini tells him (Inferno, XV, 55); “The world will listen to your broadcasts,” Kachchiagvida tells him (Paradise, XVII, 130 et seq.), and he himself assures himself that they will still call him, having withdrawn from the parties, because they will need him (Hell, XV, 70).

Throughout the work, Dante repeatedly mentioned emperors and kings: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, his cousin William II of Sicily, Manfred of Sicily, Charles I of Anjou, etc.

Impact on culture

The program of the “Divine Comedy” covered the whole life and general questions of knowledge and gave answers to them: this is a poetic encyclopedia of the medieval worldview. On this pedestal grew the image of the poet himself, early surrounded by legend, in the mysterious light of his Comedy, which he himself called a sacred poem, meaning its goals and objectives; The name Divine is accidental and belongs to a later time. Immediately after his death, both commentators and imitators appear, descending to semi-popular forms of “visions”; terzino comedies were sung already in the 14th century. in the squares. This comedy is simply Dante's book, el Dante. Boccaccio reveals a number of his public interpreters. Since then it has continued to be read and explained; the rise and fall of Italian popular consciousness was expressed by the same fluctuations in the interest that Dante aroused in literature. Outside Italy, this interest coincided with the idealistic currents of society, but it also corresponded to the goals of school erudition and subjective criticism, which saw in the Comedy everything it wanted: in the imperialist Dante - something like a Carbonara, in Dante the Catholic - a heresiarch, a Protestant, a man tormented by doubts. The newest exegesis promises to turn towards the only possible path, lovingly addressing commentators close to Dante in time, who lived in the zone of his worldview or who assimilated it. Where Dante is a poet, he is accessible to everyone; but the poet is mixed in him with the thinker. As indicated in the Newest Philosophical Dictionary, Dante’s poetry “played a large role in the formation of Renaissance humanism and in the development of the European cultural tradition as a whole, having a significant impact not only on the poetic-artistic, but also on the philosophical spheres of culture (from the lyrics of Petrarch and the Pleiades poets to sophiology of B.S. Solovyov)".

When writing this article, material was used from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907).

Russian translations

A. S. Norova, “Excerpt from the 3rd song of the poem Hell” (“Son of the Fatherland”, 1823, No. 30);
his, “Predictions of D.” (from the XVII song of the poem Paradise.
“Literary sheets”, 1824, L "IV, 175);
his, “Count Ugodin” (“News Liter.”, 1825, book XII, June).
"Hell", trans. from Italian F. Fan-Dim (E. V. Kologrivova; St. Petersburg. 1842-48; prose).
"Hell", trans. from Italian the size of the original by D. Mina (M., 1856).
D. Min, “The First Song of Purgatory” (Russian Vest., 1865, 9).
V. A. Petrova, “The Divine Comedy” (translated with Italian terzas, St. Petersburg, 1871, 3rd ed. 1872; translated only Hell).
D. Minaev, “The Divine Comedy” (LPts. and St. Petersburg. 1874, 1875, 1876, 1879, translated not from the original, in terzas).
"Hell", canto 3, trans. P. Weinberg (“Vestn. Evr.”, 1875, No. 5).
“Paolo and Francesca” (Hell, wood. A. Orlov, “Vestn. Evr.” 1875, No. 8); “The Divine Comedy” (“Hell”, presentation by S. Zarudny, with explanations and additions, St. Petersburg, 1887).
"Purgatory", trans. A. Solomon (“Russian Review”, 1892, in blank verse, but in the form of terza).
Translation and retelling of Vita Nuova in the book by S., “Triumphs of a Woman” (St. Petersburg, 1892).
Golovanov N. N. “The Divine Comedy” (1899-1902).
M. L. Lozinsky “The Divine Comedy” (1946 Stalin Prize).
Ilyushin, Alexander Anatolyevich. (“The Divine Comedy”) (1995).
Lemport Vladimir Sergeevich “The Divine Comedy” (1996-1997).

Dante in art

In 1822, Eugene Delacroix painted the painting “Dante’s Boat” (“Dante and Virgil in Hell”). In 1860, Gustave Doré illustrated Hell and Heaven. The illustrations for The Divine Comedy were done by William Blake and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

In the work of A. A. Akhmatova, the image of Dante occupied a significant place. In the poem “Muse”, Dante and the first part of the “Divine Comedy” (“Hell”) are mentioned. In 1936, Akhmatova wrote the poem “Dante”, in which the image of Dante the exile appears. In 1965, at a ceremonial meeting dedicated to the 700th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri, Anna Akhmatova read “The Tale of Dante”, where, in addition to Alighieri’s own perception, she mentions Dante in the poetry of N. S. Gumilyov and the treatise of O. E. Mandelstam "Conversation about Dante" (1933).

Dante Alighieri is an Italian poet and writer, theologian, and political activist. His contribution to the development of not only Italian, but also world literature is invaluable. He is the author of The Divine Comedy and the creator of the nine circles of hell, heaven and purgatory.

Childhood and youth

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence. His full name is Durante degli Alighieri. The exact date of birth of the poet is unknown; presumably, he was born between May 21 and June 1, 1265.

According to family tradition, his ancestors were from the Roman family of Elisei. They took part in the founding of Florence. His great-great-grandfather Kacciaguida was a knight under Conrad III, went with him on the Crusades and died in battle with the Muslims.

His great-great-grandmother was Aldighieri da Fontana, a woman from a wealthy family. She named her son Alighieri. Later this name turned into a well-known surname.

Dante's grandfather was expelled from Florence during the confrontation between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. He returned to his homeland only in 1266. His father Alighieri II was far from politics, so he remained in Florence all the time.

Dante was an educated man, he had knowledge of the natural sciences and medieval literature. He also studied the heretical teachings of that era. Where he received this knowledge is unknown. But his first mentor was the then popular scientist and poet Brunetto Latini.

Literature

It is not known for certain when Dante became interested in writing, but the creation of the work “New Life” dates back to 1292. It did not include all the poems written by that time. The book alternated poetry and fragments of prose. This is a kind of confession written by Dante after the death of Beatrice. Also in “New Life” many poems were dedicated to his friend Guido Cavalcanti, by the way, also a poet. Later scholars called this book the first autobiography in the history of literature.

Like his grandfather, Dante became interested in politics at a young age. At the end of the 13th century, Florence was involved in a conflict between the Emperor and the Pope. Alighieri took the side of opponents of papal power. At first, luck “smiled” on the poet, and soon his party managed to rise above the enemy. In 1300 he was elected to the post of prior.

However, a year later the political situation changed dramatically - power passed into the hands of the Pope’s supporters. He was expelled from Florence on a fictitious bribery case. He was also accused of anti-state activities. Dante was fined 5,000 florins, his property was seized, and later a death sentence was imposed. At this time he was outside of Florence, so, having learned about this, he decided not to return to the city. So he began to live in exile.

For the rest of his life, Dante wandered around cities and countries, finding shelter in Verona, Bologna, Ravenna, and even lived in Paris. All subsequent works after “New Life” were written in exile.

In 1304, he began writing the philosophical books “The Feast” and “On Popular Eloquence.” Unfortunately, both works remained unfinished. This is due to the fact that Dante began work on his main work, The Divine Comedy.

It is noteworthy that the poet initially called his work simply “Comedy.” The word “divine” was added to the title by Giovanni Boccaccio, Alighieri’s first biographer.

It took him 15 years to write this work. Dante personified himself with the main lyrical hero. The poem is based on his journey through the afterlife, which he embarks on after the death of his beloved Beatrice.

The work consists of three parts. The first is “Hell,” consisting of nine circles, where sinners are ranked according to the severity of their fall. Dante placed political and personal enemies here. Also in “Hell” the poet left those who, as he believed, lived unchristianly and immorally.

He described “Purgatory” with seven circles that correspond to the seven deadly sins. “Paradise” is performed in nine circles, which are named after the main planets of the solar system.

This work is still shrouded in legends. For example, Boccaccio claimed that after his death, Dante's children could not find the last 13 songs of Paradise. And they discovered them only after the father himself came to his son Jacopo in a dream and told him where they were hidden.

Personal life

Dante's main muse was Beatrice Portinari. He first saw her when he was only 9 years old. Of course, at such a young age he did not realize his feelings. He met the girl only nine years later, when she had already married another man. Only then did he realize how much he loved her. Beatrice was the poet's only love for the rest of his life.

He was such a shy and self-conscious young man that during the entire time he only spoke to his lover twice. And the girl didn’t even suspect his feelings for her. On the contrary, Dante seemed arrogant to her for not talking to her.

In 1290, Beatrice died. She was only 24 years old. The exact cause of her death is unknown. According to one version, she died during childbirth, according to another, she became a victim of a plague epidemic. For Dante this was a blow. Until the end of his days, he loved only her and cherished her image.

A couple of years later he married Gemma Donati. She was the daughter of the leader of the Florentine party, Donati, with whom the Alighieri family was at enmity. Of course, it was a marriage of convenience, and most likely political. True, the couple later had three children - sons Pietro and Jacopo and daughter Antonia.

Despite this, when Dante began to create the Comedy, he thought only about Beatrice, and it was written in glorification of this girl.

Death

The last years of his life, Dante lived in Ravenna under the patronage of Guido da Polenta, he was his ambassador. One day he went to Venice to conclude a peace treaty with the Republic of St. Mark. On the way back, the poet fell ill. Dante died on the night of September 13-14, 1321. The cause of his death was malaria.

Dante Alighieri was buried in the Church of San Francesco in Ravenna, on the territory of the monastery. In 1329, the cardinal demanded that the monks commit the poet's body to public burning. How the monks were able to “extricate themselves” from this situation is unknown, but no one touched the poet’s remains.

For the 600th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri, it was decided to restore the church. In 1865, builders discovered a wooden box in the wall with an inscription carved on it: “Dante’s bones were placed here by Antonio Santi in 1677.” This discovery became an international sensation. No one knew who this Antonio was, but some suggested that he might well be a relative of the artist.

Dante's remains were transferred to the poet's mausoleum in Ravenna, where they remain to this day.

Bibliography

• 1292 – “New Life”
• 1300 – “Monarchy”
• 1305 – “On popular eloquence”
• 1307 – “Feast”
• 1320 – “Eclogues”
• 1321 – “The Divine Comedy”

During my first visit to Ravenna, the guide Giacomo, who speaks Russian, by the way, better than many Russians, called Dante Alighieri “the Italian Pushkin.”

There is salt in his words, the fact is that it was largely thanks to the author of the “Divine Comedy” that Italian became a full-fledged language, and not a set of dialects, because none other than Dante back in 1306 created the scientific work “On Popular Eloquence” , which became the first full-fledged study of Romance languages ​​in Europe.

Henry Holiday, painting "Dante and Beatrice"

And although, of course, modern Italian schoolchildren studying Dante’s journey through the circles of Hell and the stages of Purgatory in the company of his faithful guide Virgil cannot read The Divine Comedy without explanatory footnotes, Dante’s literary authority in Italy is not subject to discussion. Unlike the same Nevzorov, who publicly declares that all the classics of Russian literature are useless, because they are godlessly outdated, Italians treat Dante’s works with the most sincere respect. Today’s review includes the main Dantean places in Italy.

FLORENCE: DANTE'S HOUSE AND THE CHURCH OF SAINT MARGARETA DE CERCHI

Finding Dante's house in Florence is as easy as shelling pears; signs with the words Casa di Dante are found in every second alley nearby.

Unfortunately, exclaiming: “I see the house where Lenin Dante grew up” would not be entirely correct. The fact is that in this place there really used to be a house belonging to the Alighieri family, where in June 1265 the future creator of the Divine Comedy was born, but time does not spare anything (even the houses of the great Italian poets), so from The original Casa di Dante is no longer left unturned today.

The modern building of the house was erected only in the first decade of the twentieth century, but both inside and out it seems to be a faithful embodiment of the architecture of the late Middle Ages.

The exhibition inside is quite modest: there is a room “like Dante’s”, there are clothes in the style of Dante (of course unoriginal), there is a corner with minzurks, flasks and other tools of alchemists - Alighieri was fond of this noble science.

In the photo: alchemist's tools in Dante's house-museum

There are also interesting illustrations in the house demonstrating how Dante’s contemporaries imagined heaven, purgatory and hell; looking at them is an extremely entertaining activity. Much becomes immediately clear.

In the photo: diagram of the structure of hell in Dante's house-museum

In the photo: the torment of sinners in hell, a painting in Dante's house-museum

The Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, where Dante married his wife Gemma Donati, is another must-see pilgrimage for lovers of the Italian Renaissance. True, the church itself was built long before the Renaissance, in 1032, that is, in the midst of the dark Middle Ages.

In the photo: Church of St. Margaret dei Cerchi

Fans of Dante do not like to remember that the Italian poet married his unloved wife within its stone walls, and for some reason they naively believe that in this church Dante first met the love of his life, Beatrice Portinari. This, by the way, is completely untrue; according to Dante himself, he first saw his Beautiful Lady at the age of nine at a family holiday in her father’s house.

In the photo: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painting “The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice at the Wedding Feast”

But Beatrice’s marriage to her husband actually took place in the Church of St. Margaret, and Dante’s beloved found eternal peace under the stone arches of this ancient Florentine church: Beatrice died at a very young age even by the standards of the Renaissance, she was only 24 years old. For many years now there has been a tradition - girls and boys leave notes with their most secret requests on the tombstone of Beatrice Portinari.

In the photo: Beatrice's tombstone with notes

An evil mockery of fate, but Dante’s legal wife, Gemma Donati, is also buried in Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, although the location of her grave has not been established by historians.

In the photo: the interior decoration of the Church of St. Margaret is very modest

The church also often hosts exhibitions of children's drawings dedicated to the life of Dante. It is worth noting that sometimes the plots of the creative works of the younger generation are downright phantasmagorical, so in 2011 in the Church of St. Margaret I saw a children’s picture on the theme “Dante and Pinocchio.”

In the photo: an exhibition of children's drawings in the church, in the paintings Dante sometimes even meets Pinocchio

After Florence was captured by the troops of Charles Valois, and power in the republic completely passed into the hands of Dante’s political opponents, the “Black Guelphs,” Alighieri, along with other moderate representatives of the “White Guelph” party, was expelled from his hometown in 1302. He never returned to Florence again.

VERONA. SIGNORIA SQUARE AND PODESTA PALACE

During the years of exile, Dante managed to live in Bolonia, Luniggiana, Casentino, and even spent a year in Paris, but the creator of the Divine Comedy stayed longest in Verona, where he found shelter with the Podesta of the city, Cana Grande I della Scala, the most powerful representative of the Scaliger family.

Can Grande I della Scala was an enlightened ruler; during his rule of Verona, many rejected artists and poets found shelter here, so Dante found himself, in modern terms, in his element, and it was not for nothing that Dante dedicated the third part of the Divine Comedy to Can Grande della Rock.

In the photo: Scaliger Castle in Verona

The Florentine exile lived in the Podesta Palace, that is, in the same palazzo as the representatives of the ruling Scaliger dynasty. Today, in the center of Piazza della Signoria opposite the Podestà Palace, there is a monument to Dante; the creator of the Divine Comedy sadly looks from a high pedestal at the tourists posing in front of him.

In the photo: Dante's monument in Verona in front of the Podesta Palace

Another Dantean place in Verona is the famous Arena di Verona. The fact is that during the Renaissance, opera divas did not perform on its stage (as today), the Scaligers used the Colosseum to carry out mass executions, often to burn heretics.

Dante was also present at one of the public executions; he described his impressions of visiting this “event” in The Divine Comedy.

RAVENNA. DANTE'S LAST REFERRAL

Dante finished the “Divine Comedy” in Ravenna, an Italian town in the province of Emilia-Romagna, where the lord of the city, Guido da Polenta, gave refuge to the poet.

They say that in recent years his children came to see Dante, but Dante never invited his wife Gemma to Ravenna. The Divine Comedy was completed in the summer of 1321, and on September 14 of the same year the greatest Italian poet passed away.

Until the end of his days, Dante could not completely ignore politics and in the fall of 1321 he went to Venice in order to convince the powerful Venetians not to attack Ravenna. Alas, he did not succeed, and on the way back Alighieri fell ill with malaria, which killed the poet in a few days. In Ravenna, Dante was buried with great honors; the city's podestà, Guido da Polenta, who was a friend of the poet, personally laid a laurel wreath on the deceased's brow.

Dante's tomb, which today is visited by all guests of Ravenna, was erected on the poet's burial site only in 1486, that is, more than a hundred years after the death of Alighieri.

Several decades after the poet's death, the rulers of Florence suddenly realized who they had lost, and began to ask Ravenna to give them Dante's ashes. Ravenna invariably refused all requests, however, in memory of Dante’s hometown, a lamp with Florentine oil burns day and night in the poet’s tomb.

In the photo: Florence - Dante's hometown

Once a year in September, in the month called “Dante’s month,” oil for the funeral lamp is brought to Ravenna from the poet’s beloved Florence, a city where he was never destined to return.

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Yulia Malkova- Yulia Malkova - founder of the website project. In the past, he was the editor-in-chief of the elle.ru Internet project and the editor-in-chief of the cosmo.ru website. I talk about travel for my own pleasure and the pleasure of my readers. If you are a representative of hotels or a tourism office, but we do not know each other, you can contact me by email: [email protected]

Dante Alighieri is the greatest and most famous person born in the Middle Ages. His contribution to the development of not only Italian, but also all world literature cannot be assessed. Today, people often look for a brief biography of Dante Alighieri. But to be so superficially interested in the life of such a great man who made a huge contribution to the development of languages ​​is not entirely correct.

Biography of Dante Alighieri

Speaking about the life and work of Dante Alighieri, it is not enough to say that he was a poet. The area of ​​his activity was very extensive and multifaceted. He was interested not only in literature, but also in politics. Today Dante Alighieri, whose biography is filled with interesting events, is called a theologian.

Beginning of life

The biography of Dante Alighieri began in Florence. The family legend, which had long been the basis of the Alighieri family, stated that Dante, like all his relatives, was a descendant of the great Roman family, which laid the preconditions for the founding of Florence itself. Everyone considered this legend to be true, because Dante’s father’s grandfather was in the ranks of the army that participated in the Crusade under the command of the Great Conrad the Third. It was this ancestor of Dante who was knighted, and soon died tragically during the battle against the Muslims.

It was this relative of Dante, whose name was Cacciaguida, who was married to a woman who came from a very rich and noble family - Aldighieri. Over time, the name of a famous family began to sound a little different - “Alighieri”. One of the children of Cacciaguida, who later became Dante's grandfather, was often persecuted from the lands of Florence in those years when the Guelphs were constantly fighting with the Ghibelline peoples.

Biography highlights

Today you can find many sources that briefly talk about the biography and work of Dante Alighieri. However, such a study of Dante’s personality will not be entirely correct. A short biography of Dante Alighieri will not be able to convey all those seemingly unimportant biographical elements that so greatly influenced his life.

Speaking about the date of birth of Dante Alighieri, no one can say the exact date, month and year. However, it is generally accepted that the main date of birth is the time that Boccaccio named, being a friend of Dante, - May 1265. The writer Dante himself wrote about himself that he was born under the zodiac of Gemini, which suggests that Alighieri’s birth time was the end of May - the beginning of June. What is known about his baptism is that this event took place in 1266, in March, and his baptismal name sounded like Durante.

Education of Dante Alighieri

Another important fact that is mentioned in all short biographies of Dante Alighieri was his education. The first teacher and mentor of the young and still unknown Dante was the popular writer, poet and at the same time scientist - Brunetto Latini. It was he who laid the first poetic knowledge in Alighieri’s young head.

And today the fact remains unknown where Dante received his further education. Scientists who study history unanimously say that Dante Alighieri was very educated, knew a lot about the literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages, was well versed in various sciences and even studied heretical teachings. Where could Dante Alighieri have acquired such extensive knowledge? In the poet’s biography, this became another mystery that is almost impossible to solve.

For a long time, scientists from all over the world tried to find the answer to this question. Many facts suggest that Dante Alighieri could have acquired such extensive knowledge at the university, which was located in the city of Bologna, since it was there that he lived for some time. But, since there is no direct evidence of this theory, we can only assume that this is so.

First steps in creativity and trials

Like all people, the poet had friends. His closest friend was Guido Cavalcanti, who was also a poet. It was to him that Dante dedicated a huge number of works and lines of his poem “New Life”.

At the same time, Dante Alighieri became known as a fairly young public and political figure. In 1300 he was elected to the post of prior, but soon the poet was expelled from Florence along with his comrades. Already on his deathbed, Dante dreamed of being in his native land. However, throughout his entire life after the expulsion, he was never allowed to visit the city, which the poet considered his homeland.

Years spent in exile

The expulsion of their hometown made Dante Alighieri, whose biography and books are filled with bitterness from separation from his native land, a wanderer. At the time of such large-scale persecution in Florence, Dante was already among the famous lyric poets. His poem “New Life” had already been written by this time, and he himself worked hard to create “The Feast”. Changes in the poet himself were very noticeable in his further work. Exile and long wandering left an indelible mark on Alighieri. His great work “The Feast” was supposed to be a response to the 14 canzones already accepted in society, but it was never completed.

Development in the literary path

It was during his exile that Alighieri wrote his most famous work, “Comedy,” which began to be called “divine” only years later. Alighieri's friend Boccaccio greatly contributed to the name change.

There are still many legends about Dante's Divine Comedy. Boccaccio himself claimed that all three cants were written in different cities. The last part, “Paradise,” was written in Ravenna. It was Boccaccio who said that after the poet died, his children for a very long time could not find the last thirteen songs that were written by the hand of the great Dante Alighieri. This part of the Comedy was discovered only after one of Alighieri’s sons dreamed of the poet himself, who told where the manuscripts were located. Such a beautiful legend is actually not refuted by scientists today, because there are a lot of oddities and mysteries surrounding the personality of this creator.

Personal life of the poet

In the personal life of Dante Alighieri, everything was far from ideal. His first and last love was the Florentine girl Beatrice Portinari. Having met his love in Florence, as a child, he did not understand his feelings for her. Having met Beatrice nine years later, when she was already married, Dante realized how much he loved her. She became the love of his life, inspiration and hope for a better future. The poet was shy all his life. During his life, he spoke only twice with his beloved, but this did not become an obstacle for him in his love for her. Beatrice did not understand, did not know about the poet’s feelings, she believed that he was simply arrogant, so he did not talk to her. This was precisely the reason that Portinari one day felt very resentful towards Alighieri and soon stopped talking to him altogether.

For the poet this was a strong blow, because it was under the influence of the very love that he felt for Beatrice that he wrote most of his works. Dante Alighieri's poem “New Life” was created under the influence of Portinari’s words of greeting, which the poet regarded as a successful attempt to attract the attention of his beloved. And Alighieri completely dedicated his “Divine Comedy” to his only and unrequited love for Beatrice.

Tragic loss

Alighieri's life changed greatly with the death of his beloved. Since at twenty-one, Biche, as the girl’s relatives affectionately called her, was married to a rich and influential man, it remains surprising that exactly three years after her marriage, Portinari suddenly died. There are two main versions of the death: the first is that Biche died during a difficult birth, and the second is that she was very ill, which ultimately led to death.

For Alighieri, this loss was very great. For a long time, not finding his place in this world, he could no longer feel sympathy for anyone. Based on the awareness of his precarious position, a few years after the loss of his beloved woman, Dante Alighieri married a very rich lady. This marriage was created solely for convenience, and the poet himself treated his wife absolutely coldly and indifferently. Despite this, in this marriage Alighieri had three children, two of whom eventually followed the path of their father and became seriously interested in literature.

Death of a great writer

Death overtook Dante Alighieri suddenly. In late summer 1321, Dante went to Venice to finally make peace with the famous Church of St. Mark. During his return to his native land, Alighieri suddenly fell ill with malaria, which killed him. Already in September, on the night of the 13th to the 14th, Alighieri died in Ravenna without saying goodbye to his children.

Alighieri was buried there, in Ravenna. The famous architect Guido da Polenta wanted to build a very beautiful and rich mausoleum for Dante Alighieri, but the authorities did not allow this, because the poet spent a huge part of his life in exile.

Today, Dante Alighieri is buried in a beautiful tomb, which was built only in 1780.

The most interesting fact remains that the familiar portrait of the poet has no historical basis or authenticity. This is how Boccaccio imagined him.

Dan Brown in his book "Inferno" writes a lot of biographical facts about Alighieri's life, which are actually recognized as reliable.

Many scientists believe that the beloved Beatrice was invented and created by time, that such a person never existed. However, no one can explain how, in this case, Dante and Beatrice could become a symbol of enormous and unhappy love, standing on the same level as Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde.