1265–1321

Poet

Early Life in Florence.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, a great commercial and banking center strategically located on a trade route between the Mediterranean and northern Europe. In Dante's lifetime the city was much involved in the controversy over the relative power of the pope and the Holy Roman Emperors. His father was perhaps a judge and a notary public, a lender of money and speculator in land. At this period the republic of Florence was split into two political factions, the Guelphs (supporters of the papacy) and Ghibbelines (supporters of the emperor), and the Alighieri family, as Guelphs, may have suffered exile at various times when their faction was out of power. Dante married Gemma di Manetto in 1283 and had with her three children, though when he himself was exiled from Florence (in 1301/02), he left without his family. At the age of nine...