DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321) Guelf family, lesser nobility; 1248 exiled by Ghibellines
Ancestor: Cacciaguida,
knighted by Emperor Conrad III, died on Crusade
Arranged marriage with Donati family, 3 children born before 1300
Public Life:
1282 Guild regime of priors established –
functions of podestà reduced
New Palazzo della Signoria begun
1293 Ordinances of Justice: ban nobles
from govt, unless they are guild members
1295
amendment: lesser nobility permitted to hold office, if they join guild
as
sign of loyalty to the guild regime
Dante enrolls in Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries;
elected member of Council of
the Popolo 1295-96
1300 selected as ambassador to San Gimignano, Tuscan hill town, Guelf alliance
elected
prior for two months (one of six; highest elective office in city)
1301
ambassador to
Split of Florentine Guelfs into factions: Dante related to
both sides of this split
Black leader Corso Donati = Dante’s brother-in-law
White leader Guido Cavalcanti
= Dante best friend
1300 leaders of both factions exiled to calm tensions
Blacks: Papal allies; French army of
Charles of Valois (brother of King) used
by Pope Boniface VIII to expand Papal States in
1301
BLACK
GUELF COUP: Army
of Charles of Valois enters
Dante condemned in absentia, 5,000 florin
fine, later to death by burning
1300-1301 = turning point in Dante’s life, becomes
exile in
Career as writer and poet:
Teacher: Brunetto Latini
– Latin grammar, rhetoric (public speaking)
(in Inferno Canto XV – circle of the sodomites)
1292 La Vita Nuova
poems in
vernacular Italian, love poems dedicated to
Beatrice
Portinari, Florentine noble woman married to Bardi family
combination of love sonnets and chronology of meeting
Beatrice
1307-1314 La Commedia (later called La Divina Commedia)
Christian
symbolism, allegory: "autobiography on a cosmic scale"
Time frame: set in the year 1300
(actually written later)
Characters: Dante ("everyman," the Christian
soul/pilgrim),
Virgil
(Reason), Beatrice (Revelation/Divine Love)
Geography:
Ptolemaic universe; Ptolemy = Egyptian astronomer; universe as
geocentric: sun & moon = planets, on
crystalline spheres moved by angels
Journey
through universe: opens with Dante lost in Dark Wood
Hell:
First Circle = Limbo, "good
pagans" Plato, Aristotle, Virgil etc.
deeper
circles: Incontinence: sins of passion, eg lust, gluttony
Violence:
against self (suicide), neighbor, God
Fraud: sins of deceit, treason as worst
eg Brutus
in jaws of demon at bottom of Hell for
role in assassination of Julius Ceasar
Purgatory:
"mountain of Purgatory" summit "Earthly Paradise"
where
Beatrice replaces Virgil as guide to heaven
of angels, level of holiness; last sphere = Primum mobile,
beyond this universe ends, Empyrean
(where God is) begins
1311-12 De Monarchia
(On Monarchy)
political treatise in support of authority of
Emperor Henry VII of
seen
by Dante in exile as just ruler, savior of conflict ridden
by 1310,
Dante is supporter of Empire (1301 charge of Ghibellinism)
Papacy:
usurper of Emperor’s temporal power, cause of
rejects papal theory
of Donation of Constantine to claim secular power
Emperor’s authority directly from God; not subordinate to Pope
overcoming
local conflicts, tensions, factions
Florence leads opposition to Henry VII,
whose campaign ends with death in 1313