Dante Alighieri was born into the minor nobility of Florence in May or June of 1265. He claims to have been just nine years old when he first set eyes on his beloved Beatrice, who in various guises would inspire a lifetime of literary creation. As a young boy Dante probably studied with a local grammar master to gain the basics of Latin language and letters, the gateway to higher study. He later spent time in the schools of Florence that were attached to the great churches of the new monastic orders (the Franciscans and/or the Dominicans) and spent a brief period in Bologna, site of the first European university. Dante began writing courtly love lyrics in the Italian vernacular as a teenager, becoming part of an elite group of philosophically minded Tuscan poets who would elevate the genre to a dolce stil nuovo, or “sweet new style” (see Stil Novo Poetry, also in WLAIT 7: Italian Literature and Its Times). When Dante was about 20, he married a woman named Gemma Donati, with whom he had at least four children. Several years later, in the 1290s, he collected many of his poems and surrounded them with prose commentary to form his first book, the Vita nuova or “New Life,” a firstperson account of his youthful love for Beatrice.
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