Dante Alighieri(1265–1321) Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, was born in Florence of a middle-class family with some pretensions to nobility. It is likely that he frequented the church schools, and he probably spent a year at the...

(born &circa; May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence, Italy—died Sept. 13/14, 1321, Ravenna) Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later...

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265–1321), Italian poet, theologian, and philosopher. Dante offered in his Commedia a "sacred poem" of enormous erudition and aesthetic power, which more than any other work of Christian literature merits the...

(born &circa; May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence—died Sept. 13/14, 1321, Ravenna) Italian poet. Dante was of noble ancestry, and his life was shaped by the conflict between papal and imperial partisans (the Guelfs and Ghibellines). When an...

1265-1321 Italian poet who in his Divine Comedy (1308-21) popularized ideas on geometry and astronomy. Perhaps the most significant literary work of the later Middle Ages, the Divine Comedy is an allegory representing the poet's journey through...

Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14[1], 1321), was an Italian poet from Florence. His central work, the Commedia (Divine Comedy), is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a...