Dante Alighieri, probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
The Divine Comedy is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
Brunetto Latini was an Italian philosopher, scholar, notary, politician and statesman.
Guido Cavalcanti was an Italian poet. He was also a friend and intellectual influence on Dante Alighieri.
The Battle of Campaldino was a battle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines on 11 June 1289. Mixed bands of pro-papal Guelf forces of Florence and allies, Pistoia, Lucca, Siena, and Prato, all loosely commanded by the paid condottiero Amerigo di Narbona with his own professional following, met a Ghibelline force from Arezzo including the perhaps reluctant bishop, Guglielmino degli Ubertini, in the plain of Campaldino, which leads from Pratovecchio to Poppi, part of the Tuscan countryside along the upper Arno called the Casentino. One of the combatants on the Guelph side was Dante Alighieri, twenty-four years old at the time.
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti was a Florentine Epicurean philosopher and father of Guido Cavalcanti, a close friend of Dante Alighieri.
The Battle of Montaperti was fought on 4 September 1260 between Florence and Siena in Tuscany as part of the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Florentines were routed. It was the bloodiest battle fought in Medieval Italy, with more than 10,000 fatalities. An act of treachery during the battle is recorded by Dante Alighieri in the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy.
Manente degli Uberti, known as Farinata degli Uberti, was an Italian aristocrat and military leader of the Ghibelline faction in Florence. He was considered to be a heretic by some of his contemporaries, including Dante Alighieri, who mentioned Farinata in his Inferno.
Iacopo Rusticucci was a Guelph politician and accomplished orator who lived and worked in Florence, Italy in the 13th century. Rusticucci is realized historically primarily in relation to the Adimari family, who wielded much power and prestige in thirteenth-century Florence, and to whom it is thought Rusticucci was a close companion, representative, and perhaps lawyer. Despite his association with men born into high political and social rank, Rusticucci was not born into nobility, and nothing is known of his ancestors or predecessors. The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown.
Paolo Malatesta, also known as il Bello, was the third son of Malatesta da Verucchio, lord of Rimini. He is best known for the story of his affair with Francesca da Polenta, portrayed by Dante in a famous episode of his Inferno. He was the brother of Giovanni (Gianciotto) and Malatestino Malatesta.
Corso Donati was a leader of the Black Guelph faction in 13th- and early 14th- century Florence.
Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante's journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen". As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.
Poppi Castle is a medieval castle in Poppi, Tuscany, Italy, formerly the property of the noble Guidi family.
The Traversari are a noble Italian family. The dynasty's history was mostly connected to Ravenna, which it ruled between the 12th and 13th centuries. St. Romuald was the son of Duke Sergio degli Onesti of Ravenna and of Traversara Traversari, daughter of Teodoro Traversari, son of Paolo I Traversari.
Jacopo Alighieri was an Italian poet, the son of Dante Alighieri, whom he followed in his exile. Jacopo's most famous work is his sixty-chapter Dottrinale. He is represented by the father in the Paradiso of the Divine Comedy as Saint James along with Saint Peter and Saint John the Evangelist, representing his brothers Pietro and Giovanni.
Guido Guerra V (1220-1272) was a politician from Florence, Italy. Aligned with the Guelph faction, Guerra had a prominent role in the political conflicts of mid-thirteenth century Tuscany. He was admired by Dante Alighieri, who granted him honor in the Divine Comedy, even though he placed Guerra in Hell among sinners of sodomy.
Cianghella della Tosa lived in late medieval Florence, Italy. She was born into the Florentine Della Tosa family and married into the Alidosi family of Imola, near Bologna. Most of what is known about Cianghella is due to her reference in Dante's Divine Comedy.
Nella Donati was a medieval noblewoman from Florence, Italy. She is primarily known because of Dante Alighieri's treatment of her relationship to her husband, Forese Donati, in the Divine Comedy and in a series of poems Dante exchanged with Forese.
Bonconte I da Montefeltro was an Italian Ghibelline general. He led Ghibelline forces in several engagements until his battlefield death. Dante Alighieri featured Montefeltro as a character in the Divine Comedy.
The third circle of hell is depicted in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the first part of the 14th-century poem Divine Comedy. Inferno tells the story of Dante's journey through a vision of the Christian hell ordered into nine circles corresponding to classifications of sin; the third circle represents the sin of gluttony, where the souls of the gluttonous are punished in a realm of icy mud.
