Dante Alighieri: From the "Divine Comedy" to modern Italian language

Dante Alighieri was one of the most popular and influential figures in Italian culture. Author of "The Divine Comedy", considered a masterpiece of literature, he strongly influenced the formation of the modern Italian language. 699 years after his death, in this piece of writing, you will find a little more about his life and work.

 A passionate life

Dante's date of birth is not known with certainty, although it is believed that it was in the year 1265, and that he was Gemini. Originally baptized as Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri in his native Florence, he was the son of a family who belonged to the Guelph side, which supported the power of the Holy Roman Emperor against the Pope in Rome. This political membership would shape Dante's actions and later life.

At the age of nine, he met Beatriz Portinari on the street, the lady with whom he fell madly in love, and to whom he dedicated a large part of his work. With Beatriz he practiced what was known at the time as "courtly love", that is, the platonic admiration of a man for a woman, generally loved from a distance. It is even believed that Dante would have intentionally flirted with another woman to take this further to the extreme, causing him to withdraw his greeting when crossing the streets of Florence. Finally, she died in 1290, at the age of 24, which left Dante plunged into a deep sadness that led him to take refuge in literature.

In 1291 He married Gemma Donati, to whom he had been engaged since he was 12 years old, he ventured into the convulsed politics of the time, while studying medicine and pharmaceuticals, because, in order to occupy a public position, it was mandatory to enlist in one of the so-called "Guilds" that were in the city. There, he adhered to the Guelph cause which, opposing the power of the Pope, upheld the need for an independent State and relied on the more secular power of the Holy Roman Empire for this. However, within the Guelphs there were also fierce divisions, since both complexions, the "white" -to which Dante belonged- and the "black" supported different Germanic families to occupy the throne of the Empire. Dante was sent to Rome as an ambassador of peace in 1301, but Pope Boniface VIII took him prisoner, and then ordered the invasion of Florence with the complicity of the black Guelphs, enemies of the white complexion ones to which Dante belonged. At that moment, a long exile began for Dante, who was never able to return to his beloved Florence, and was sentenced to death in absentia. He spent his last years living in various Italian cities, dedicated to literature, until his death on September 14, 1321

His Work

Dante is considered the father of the current Italian language, which comes from the Florentine dialect. He wrote several literary and theoretical works in Latin and in the so-called "vernacular", which was the dialect spoken at that time by the popular classes. His most influential work was "La divina comedia", an allegorical epic with a strong symbolic presence of the number three, since it is divided into three parts with 33 songs each, composed in turn by triplets. The parts are "Hell," Purgatory, and "Paradise"; Because it has a happy ending, Dante preferred to call his work "comedy". The three main characters are himself, as an incarnation of Man, Beatriz, as an incarnation of Faith, and Virgilio, as an incarnation of Reason. In this way, the set summarizes the main doctrines of the time, describing what today would be an afterlife story with deep philosophical meanings.

Since his work was written in the Tuscan dialect, having a great impact, Dante Alighieri is considered to be the highest representative figure of the Italian language and culture, by popularizing and defending the dialect that would give rise to the current Italian language.

Could you let us know if you know something about this exciting language.

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Gracias a Lucio Maciá por la nota, Araceli Sabransky por las publicaciones para historias de instagram, y Christian Trappani por la traducción al inglés y por la organización.

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