SOURCE: "The New Life of Dante," in Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Vol. 23, 1983, pp. 52-68.

In the following essay, origianlly written in 1859, Norton discusses the development of Dante's thought about Beatrice and the relationship of the Vita Nuova to his other works.

The year 1289 was one marked in the annals of Florence and of Italy by events which are still famous, scored by the genius of Dante upon the memory of the world. It was in this year that Count Ugolino and his sons and grandsons were starved by the Pisans in their tower prison. A few months later, Francesca da Rimini was murdered by her husband. Between the dates of these two terrible events the Florentines had won the great victory of Campaldino; and thus, in this short space, the materials had been given to the poet for the two best-known and most powerful stories and for one...