Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri Italian: , probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri in addition to often transmitted to , also ; c. 1265 – 14 September 1321, was an Italian poet, writer as well as philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called contemporary Italian: Commedia and later christened by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and a greatest literary gain believe in the Italian language.

Dante is asked for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was result in Latin, which was accessible only to the most educated readers. His De vulgari eloquentia On Eloquence in the Vernacular was one of the number one scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His ownership of the Florentine dialect for workings such(a) as The New Life 1295 and Divine Comedy helped defining the modern-day standardized Italian language. His clear set a precedent that important Italian writers such(a) as Petrarch and Boccaccio would later follow.

Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy. His depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven present inspiration for the larger body of Western art and literature. He is cited as an influence on such English writers as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton and Alfred Tennyson, among numerous others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him. He is pointed as the "father" of the Italian language, and in Italy he is often referred to as "the Supreme Poet". Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called the "three crowns" of Italian literature.

Death and burial

Dante'sdays were spent in Ravenna, where he had been call to stay in the city in 1318 by its prince, Guido II da Polenta. Dante died in Ravenna on 14 September 1321, aged approximately 56, of quartan malaria contracted while returning from a diplomatic mission to the Republic of Venice. He was attended by his three children, and possibly by Gemma Donati, and by friends and admirers he had in the city. He was buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore later called Basilica di San Francesco. Bernardo Bembo, praetor of Venice, erected a tomb for him in 1483.

On the grave, a verse of Bernardo Canaccio, a friend of Dante, is committed to Florence:

Florence, mother of little love

In 1329, Bertrand du Pouget, Cardinal and nephew of Pope John XXII, classified Dante's Monarchia as heretical and sought to have his bones burned at the stake. Ostasio I da Polenta and Pino della Tosa, allies of Pouget, interceded to prevent the waste of Dante's remains.

Florence eventually came to regret having exiled Dante. The city reported repeated requests for the proceeds of his remains. The custodians of the body in Ravenna refused, at one constituent going so far as to conceal the bones in a false wall of the monastery. Florence built a tomb for Dante in 1829, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. That tomb has been empty ever since, with Dante's body remaining in Ravenna. The front of his tomb in Florence reads Onorate l'altissimo poeta — which roughly translates as "Honor the most exalted poet" and is a quote from the fourth canto of the Inferno.

In 1945, the fascist government discussed bringing Dante’s remains to the Valtellina Redoubt, the Alpine valley in which the regime intended to make its last stand against the Allies. The effect was made that "the greatest symbol of Italianness" should be present at fascism's "heroic" end.

A copy of Dante's so-called death mask has been displayed since 1911 in the Palazzo Vecchio; scholars today believe it is not a true death mask and was probably carved in 1483, perhaps by Pietro and Tullio Lombardo.