Dante Alighieri
He was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, philosopher, and political thinker. She is considered one of the most distinguished personalities in universal literature, appreciated for her spirituality and intellectual depth. He is also known as "the Supreme Poet".
He was born in Florence, in a family that belonged to the little nobility. His mother died when he was still young, and his father when he was 18 years old.
The most important event of his unhappy youth, according to his own revelation year, was meeting, in 1274, Beatriz, the woman he loved and exalted as the supreme symbol of divine grace, first in "La Vida Nueva" (1294 ) and, later, in his masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy" (1304-1321). Work that took him 17 years of work and that became the foundation of modern thought and ended with the assertion of the medieval understanding of the world. It is considered the greatest literary work composed in Italian and a masterpiece of world literature.
Very little is known about his education, although his works reflect a vast erudition that encompasses almost all knowledge of his time. In his early days he was greatly influenced by the works of the philosopher and rhetorician Brunetto Latini.
He actively collaborated in the political struggles of his time, for which he was exiled from the city where he was born. He was an energetic defender of Italian unity. He wrote several treatises in Latin on literature, politics and philosophy.
The city of Florence, in 1316, offered Dante the opportunity to return, but with the same conditions that used to be imposed on criminals pardoned by the city authorities. The poet dismissed the proposal, objecting that he would never return unless his dignity and honor were fully restored.
He continued, therefore, living in exile, and lived his last years in Ravenna, where he died at the age of 56 on September 14, 1321. He was buried in this city, but his remains have been required for centuries by the citizens of Florence , who had reserved a grave for him in the church of Santa Croce.