Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence around 1265 into a family of modest nobility. He was deeply involved in the city's political life, serving as a prior, but was exiled in 1302 after a factional conflict. During his exile, he wrote his masterwork, The Divine Comedy, an allegorical journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The poem synthesizes medieval theology, classical mythology, and contemporary politics, and it established the Tuscan dialect as the basis for modern Italian. Dante also wrote philosophical works like Convivio and the Latin treatise De Monarchia. His influence on literature is immense, inspiring writers from Chaucer to T.S. Eliot. He died in Ravenna in 1321.