Dante conceived his Comedy as a deeply Christian work. Nevertheless, the author populated the Afterlife with mythical creatures, ancient heroes, philosophers and poets. For example, Dante places his idols — Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan and Virgil — in Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, inhabited by virtuous pagans. The poet saw himself as the successor to the Greek and Roman classical authors. His primary inspiration was Virgil, from whom he adopted not only an elegant poetic style, but also political ideas. In the manner of his idol, Dante eulogized the concept of the Roman Empire.

In the Divine Comedy, Virgil leads Dante out of the “gloomy forest”, which symbolizes the spiritual impasse at which the poet found himself halfway through his life’s journey. Virgil’s mission is to show Dante the Afterlife, whereupon the latter shall impart his knowledge to humanity. Having made the pagan

Virgil his guide through Hell and Purgatory, Dante follows his mentor both in fiction as a protagonist of the Comedy and in reality as an author.

Dante knew Virgil’s Aeneid by heart, and essentially transplanted one of its themes to the Christian ethos of his time. Like the Trojan Aeneas, Dante journeys to the kingdom of the dead. Both heroes have a guide (Aeneas is aided by the Cumaean Sibyl), both encounter sentinels and mythical beasts (Charon, Cerberus, Phlegyas and many others). Both find their ancestors in the world of the dead, who predict their future: Aeneas comes face to face with his father, Dante with his
great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida. In Dante’s Afterlife, some characters from the Aeneid are allotted a worthier fate. For example, Dante awards the noble Trojan Ripheus a place in Paradise, which is more than he gives the latter’s literary creator Virgil. In the mind's eye of the poet, as a reward for striving for the truth, God revealed the future

to Ripheus, thus he became a Christian long before the foundation of Christianity.

In the kingdom of the dead as depicted in the Aeneid, there is no system of recognition or retribution for the earthly deeds of
humankind. Moreover, Aeneas does not
venture there so as to observe the lives of its resident souls. He is in pursuit of a personal goal — to be reunited with his father. Dante, on the contrary, is on a kind of spiritual pilgrimage, and pays great attention to the structure of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, as well as the sins and punishments of their dwellers.

Dante’s decision to abandon other writings in favor of his magnum opus — devoted to love, faith and politics — bonds him fraternally with Virgil. Both authors worked on their masterpieces until their dying breath.

In the last years of his life, Dante corresponded with Bologna professor

Giovanni del Virgilio, who hugely admired Virgil (and even shared his name). He opined that the Divine Comedy, a paean to life and death, is written in volgare (the vulgar or common Florentine dialect). In response, Dante demonstrated his mastery of the Latin language by composing several eclogues in the style of Virgil. However, in the Comedy, Dante defended the right of Italian poets to speak of the sublime in their native tongue, understandable to most compatriots.

Among the heretics in Hell, Dante meets the Florentine aristocrat Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, punished for his Epicurean views, including disbelief in the immortality of the soul. He is the father of the poet’s best friend, Guido Cavalcanti.

Born around the 1250s, Cavalcanti junior was an outstanding poet of his time and a follower of another Guido, who bore the surname Guinizelli (and whom Dante placed in the Seventh Circle of Purgatory among the lustful), the founder of Dolce Stil Novo ("sweet new style"), a literary movement in 13th-century Italy. Some of the distinctive features of this style are allegorical language, the exaltation of unearthly love, and the "beautiful lady" as the embodiment of moral perfection.

It was poetry that brought Guido and Dante together. In his youth, the latter sent his debut sonnet, dedicated to his beloved Beatrice, to several eminent poets, but received a

favorable response only from Guido. Cavalcanti junior thus became his mentor and close friend. Over time, however, the philosophical and political views of the two poets began to diverge.

In the Comedy, for example, upon hearing Dante's voice, the shadow of Cavalcanti senior rises from the ground in the hope of glimpsing his son nearby. In the mind of the conceited father, the creative genius of his son should have allowed him to accompany Dante through the Underworld. But the latter gently reproaches him for showing disrespect to Virgil. Dante in fact considered himself as the heir to the ancient poet, hence he chose him as his guide through Hell and Purgatory. Guido’s main fault, like that of his father, is lack of faith; for Dante was seemingly given the opportunity to see the Afterlife not by virtue of his own will, but by the grace of God.

As for politics, Guido, like Dante, played an

active role in the life of Florence. Historically, his family belonged to the Guelphs
(supporters of the Pope), who opposed the Ghibellines (supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor). With a view to reconciling the factions, Cavalcanti senior married his son Guido to the daughter of the head of the Ghibellines, Farinata degli Uberti, whom Dante symbolically places in the neighboring tomb. However, in the latter half of the 13th century, the Ghibellines’ influence faded, whereupon infighting broke out among the Guelphs. The rival camps are known as the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs; Guido, like Dante, is on the side of the White Guelphs, but he is far more radical. This leads him to make an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the leader of the Black Guelphs, his mortal enemy Corso Donati.

In June 1300, when the situation reached a flashpoint, the Florentine authorities expelled Guido from the city, along with other dangerous rebels on both sides. Among them

was Dante, who at that time occupied the position of municipal prior. Guido was permitted to return to Florence, but in exile he fell ill with malaria and soon died.

At the time of Dante's fictional descent into the Underworld, his nemesis, Pope Boniface VIII, was still alive. But Dante makes it clear that he is destined for the Eighth Circle as a simoniac.

The ambitious Benedetto Caetani, the future Boniface VIII, secured the papal throne by persuading his inexperienced predecessor to abdicate, replacing the latter in 1294 and appointing his own relatives to high ecclesiastical positions.

The year 1300 was the highest point in the reign of Boniface VIII. It marked the first Holy Year, when the promise of absolution attracted many pilgrims to Rome to make a donation. But in Florence, it was a time of political crisis. The ostensible reason was a quarrel between the two most powerful families in the city, which broke out when Corso Donati, the scion of an ancient chivalric line and a relative of Dante’s wife, allegedly poisoned his first

spouse, the sister of the banker Vieri dei Cerchi.

In fact, the complex class struggle between the nobles and the merchants had been brewing for some time. After the supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor (the Ghibellines) were expelled from the city, the supporters of the Pope (the Guelphs) became riven by internal conflict. Prosperous townspeople (the popolani) effectively squeezed the aristocracy out of control in Florence, but not without a fight. As a result, the Guelph party split into the “White” popolani led by Cerchi and the “Black” nobles headed by Donati. In reality, the picture was more nuanced. For example, Dante, who came from the nobility, joined the Whites because they were more committed to the rule of law. They were also in favor of collaboration with the Ghibellines to curb papal power.

Pope Boniface VIII himself patronized the leader of the Blacks, Corso Donati. The Pontiff hoped to bring his loyal supporters to power and annex Tuscany to his dominions. In early

1301, he drew the brother of the French king, Charles of Valois, into the Florentine conflict, and in June the Blacks began to organize a poorly concealed coup. The plotters were
fined, and their leaders expelled from the city, but this did not rectify matters.
To try to rescue the situation, three ambassadors were dispatched to the Pope, among them Dante. But Boniface VIII
declined to receive them. While the ambassadors were in Rome, the coup took place in Florence with the support of the Pontiff.

In November 1301, the papal representative Charles of Valois, in the guise of peacemaker, entered the city. He was accompanied by
a small unit of cavalrymen, led by the recently exiled Donati. The Whites fell from power.
In 1302, a court threatened Dante
and his comrades-in-arms with death should they ever return to Florence. The poet’s home was destroyed, and he himself was forever severed from his birthplace.

The Florentine events largely brought about Dante’s subsequent rapprochement with the allies of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Ghibellines, and his commitment to the idea of a universal monarchy, which stated that just as there was one God, so should there be just one monarch, independent of the Church.

Meanwhile, Boniface VIII sought to establish unlimited papal power in Europe, for which he paid a heavy price. The Pontiff received short shrift from King Philip IV of France (their simmering conflict flared up decisively when Boniface joined forces with the king’s brother in Italy). In response to the Pope’s claims, Philip IV accused him of heresy and usurpation of power. In September 1303, an attempt was made to capture Boniface VIII. He was placed under guard and allegedly slapped in the face. His supporters eventually managed to free the Pontiff, but he died a few weeks later from his ordeal. In 1305, he was replaced by the protégé of the French king, Clement V. The papal court was moved to Avignon, France,

marking the start of the Avignon Papacy (also known as the Babylon Captivity), which greatly weakened the Roman Catholic Church in Europe.

Forese Donati was one of Dante’s closest friends and a distant relative. At the age of 12, the future poet was betrothed to Forese’s six-year-old cousin, Gemma Donati. When the time came, Dante fulfilled the obligation and married Gemma. The year was most likely 1285, five years before the death of his beloved Beatrice. In those days, marriage was an instrument to create political unions and produce offspring; tradition required men to pay “courtly love” to a woman, but this did not necessarily have to be his wife.

Dante’s muse was a lady named Beatrice, and it is to her that he dedicated all his works. He never once mentioned Gemma anywhere in his writings, so whether the marriage was happy is hard to tell. It is known that they had four children: Giovanni, Jacopo, Pietro and Antonia. When Dante was expelled from Florence due to the influence of his main political opponent, Corso Donati (a relative of his wife and the brother of Forese), Gemma remained in the city with the children. She

never saw her husband again.

As for Forese, there is precious little biographical information, except that he had a reputation as a jester and a boozer.

His character is largely revealed in his poetic jousting with Dante. In this literary squabble, the latter dispenses with the exalted language of his early poems and demonstrates his creative range by switching to the “low” vernacular style. Six sonnets (known as the Tenzone) have survived, in which Dante and Forese skillfully and cynically pour poetic mud over each other.

For instance, Dante accuses Forese of gluttony and larceny, and quips that his wife is cold in her empty bed, hinting that Forese is not performing his conjugal duties. The latter, in turn, pokes fun at Dante’s poverty, claiming that he will end his days at the Pinti Hospice, founded by the Donati family for the poor: “I

see God’s house in Pinti. And what there? Three eating off one plate, and the third is Dante in his tattered garments.”

Such mutual invective was, however, merely a tribute to the poetic tradition; in real life Dante and Forese got on famously well. Most likely, they struck up their close friendship almost immediately after the death of Beatrice. The circumstantial evidence indicates that Dante was not too proud of this period of his life. Depressed after the loss of his beloved, he tried to drown his sorrow in wine and pleasure. But despite all this, Dante's attitude to Forese remained warm.

This is posited by the fact that Dante, for all his sins, placed his prematurely deceased friend (who died in 1296 before the age of 40) in the Sixth Circle of Purgatory. And their meeting in the Divine Comedy is full of genuine affection and compassion. In Purgatory, Donati is gaunt with hunger and thirst. To Dante, the sight is truly shocking. He

says that his heart is again clenched with pain, even though he has already mourned his dead friend. Both recall the time they spent together with nostalgia.

Dante and Beatrice lived in the same district of Florence, their families belonged to the same political faction, and the poet even befriended Beatrice’s elder brother. Despite this, Dante’s contact with his beloved was limited to just a few brief meetings — at least that is what the poet himself asserted.

According to legend, he first set eyes on his future muse at a feast hosted by her father, the respected banker Folco Portinari. Bice (Beatrice’s pet name) and Dante were both around nine years old at the time. Despite
his tender age, it was love at first sight.

However, their next meeting took place a
whole nine years later: Dante spotted Beatrice walking in the street, and she greeted him with an affectionate bow, a very significant gesture in those days. Thereafter, the poet wrote his first sonnet, which he dedicated to his sweetheart.

By this time, Beatrice was already a
married donna, wedded to a scion of an influential Florentine family for political motives. Dante’s beloved was now part of
the most respectable circle of the urban
elite, a step above the poet on the social ladder.

This did not prevent Dante from admiring Beatrice from afar and devoting poetry to her. True, so as not to bring discredit upon his beloved, the poet courted other ladies, as was customary for the time. Some
accounts suggest that they were not
merely screens, but that Dante had
genuine feelings for them. Whatever the case, these courtships did not endear him to Beatrice. During one of their chance encounters, she rejected the poet by not responding to his bow. After that, Dante broke off his other attachments.

Beatrice passed away in 1290, a whole decade before the fictitious events of the

Comedy. In Dante’s own words, for a while afterwards he became enthralled by another lady, who comforted him in his sorrow. This coincided with a period of intense philosophical study in the first half of the 1290s, and he interpreted this woman as a kind of philosophy. In the Comedy, Beatrice reproaches the poet for betraying her memory and following a false path in search of truth and verity.

After the death of his beloved, Dante combined his early lyrics into the collection La Vita Nuova (“The New Life”), in which the poems alternate with prosaic explanations of their meaning and descriptions of the circumstances in which they were created. It is this work in particular that sheds light on Dante’s acquaintance with the lady of his heart. In creating the ideal image of Beatrice, Dante did not do without hyperbole. For example, there is his theological digression on the number nine, which he sees as divine for being the square of three (the number of the

Trinity). For him it is no coincidence that they met at the age of nine; instead it is a sign that Beatrice is a miracle incarnate.

In La Vita Nuova, the poet idealized her as an angel and associated her with the figure of Christ. Later, in the Comedy, Beatrice is primarily an allegory of piety and divine wisdom. She dwells among the saints and apostles, possesses sublime knowledge and helps Dante achieve spiritual insight.

In May or June 1265, Alighiero di Bellincione, a Florentine nobleman of moderate means, and his wife, Bella degli Abati, welcomed the arrival of their firstborn child. The boy was baptized Durante, but posterity has remembered him under the abbreviated name Dante.

The mother of the future poet died when he was a child, a loss that caused him suffering throughout his life. His father, probably a lawyer and a usurer, married for a second time, after which he had two or three more children (according to some accounts, Dante had one half-brother, while his sisters were full-blood relatives). Alighieri senior passed away in 1283, and at the age of 18 Dante became the head of the family. His relationships with his brother and sisters seem to have been amicable. His brother Francesco, for instance, greatly helped him in his early years of exile.

Little is known about Dante’s ancestors. On his

journey through the afterlife, the poet meets only one relative, his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida. Born 1091, he took part in the Second (unsuccessful) Crusade, was knighted by the emperor for bravery, but died heroically soon afterwards. Dante’s last name came from Cacciaguida’s wife, a descendant of the Aldighieri family (which later became Alighieri). In the Divine Comedy, through the lips of his great-great-grandfather, the poet extols the peaceful, idyllic Florence of the past, as opposed to the 13th-14th century republic torn by political strife.

Dante himself was born when the decades-long struggle between the two local factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines was drawing to a close. According to legend, the blood feud arose in the early 13th century after the young Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti jilted a girl from the Amidei family on their wedding day, preferring another. Out of revenge, her relatives murdered the unfaithful groom. One part of

Florence (the Guelphs) sided with the victim; the other (the Ghibellines) supported the perpetrators. In Dante’s Inferno, the main instigator of the crime is disemboweled.

But the real conflict between the factions was political. In those days, a fierce rivalry raged between the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II for power in Italy. The populace of its northern regions was divided into the Ghibellines, who supported Frederick II, and the Guelphs, who backed the Pope. Power alternated between the two parties. Dante’s ancestors, who traditionally belonged to the Guelphs, suffered greatly from the in-fighting, with the Pope’s allies twice being expelled from Florence.

But in 1250 Frederick II died, followed in 1264 by the Ghibelline leader Farinata degli Uberti (whose family had been involved in the murder of Buondelmonte). The Holy See formed an alliance with France, which routed the Ghibellines in 1266, and a year later the

emperor’s allies were expelled from Florence, stripping them of political heft for a long time to come.

Although Dante placed Frederick II and Farinata in the Sixth Circle of Hell as heretics, he did not feel animosity for the political opponents of his ancestors. He began writing Inferno in the early 1300s, by which time he had been exiled and won over to the Ghibelline cause, before finally breaking with all political factions in favor of his idea of a just universal monarchy. Dante saw Frederick II as the last legitimate heir of the Roman Empire, and an example of a monarch independent of the papacy. And he respected the Ghibelline leader Farinata for refusing to destroy his native Florence for the sake of consolidating his party’s power.

In Dante’s time, Italy was not united. The southern territories were under the Sicilian and Neapolitan kingdoms. The central part was ruled by the popes. And the semi-autonomous north (including Florence) was part of the Holy Roman Empire, where German kings were elected emperor by local princes. Northern Italy was ruled by municipalities — large trading cities that defended their independence and competed amongst themselves. Dante, for his part, dreamed of peace and unity in his native land.

His ideal was a universal monarchy led by the Roman people as the heirs to the ancient Roman Empire. In it, power would be granted to the — educated and fair-minded — monarch directly by God, without
the mediation of the Church.

Dante’s hopes for the realization of this
utopia were pinned on the new German king,
Henry VII.

King Philip IV of France had his brother lined up for the vacant throne of the Holy Roman Empire, but in 1308 the electors opted for the safe (in their eyes) Count Henry of Luxembourg. His candidacy was backed by the archbishop of Trier, the brother of the future emperor. In addition, Henry was secretly supported by the protégé of the French king, Pope Clement V, who was wary of the excessive power-grabbing of his patron.

In 1250, the long tradition of crowning emperors in Rome was broken. With a view to restoring imperial power in Italy, Henry in 1310 embarked on a Rome campaign. Besides wanting a papal imperial coronation, his official objective was to reconcile the warring forces tearing the country apart. The king was well received by both the Ghibellines, the original supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the White Guelphs, who were seeking to regain their former influence. Their common enemies, the Black Guelphs, were wary of the “peacemaker” — and this largely

predetermined where his own sympathies lay.

Many cities immediately swore allegiance to Henry VII. As early as January 1311, in Milan, he was crowned King of Italy. Also present at the ceremony was Dante. All that remained was for Henry VII to be coronated with the imperial crown in Rome. However, parts of Northern Italy, such as Florence, refused to submit to his authority. The rebellion was brutally suppressed by Henry's troops from Germany. And although the violence and plunder (cities that had sworn allegiance were forced to pay tribute) dented Henry VII's reputation, Dante saw him as the savior — both his own and Italy's.

In a message to the Florentines in the spring of 1311, the poet criticized his compatriots for their unwillingness to yield. And in another letter to Henry VII himself, he called upon the king to seize Florence as soon as possible. But Henry was too busy pacifying other cities to act quickly. Nevertheless, in September, he

finally managed to subdue the Tuscan capital, despite having lost most of his army by then. After the victory over Florence, an amnesty was declared for political exiles, but, ironically, Dante did not take it up.

Henry’s position exacerbated his rivalry with both the French king and the ruler of Naples, Robert, who also claimed dominance in Northern Italy. In the end, Clement V turned his back on Henry (for which Dante prepared a place in the Eighth Circle of Hell for the treacherous pontiff).

All the same, in 1312, Henry was finally given a papal coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, but his position was tenuous. He attempted to eliminate the threat posed by Robert, King of Naples, but to no avail. Finally, in August 1313, Henry VII died of malaria. For Dante, the death of the man for whom he had harbored such high hopes came as a bitter blow, yet he kept faith in his own ideals until the very end.