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[[File: Dante One.jpg|200px|thumb|left| A portrait of Dante by Botticelli c 1480]]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the Western literary tradition. He is so famous that he is simply known by his first name, Dante and he is held to be viewed as the national poet of Italy. This He was a literary giant that had a decisive impact on the development not only of Italian literature but on many other aspects of the Renaissance. He Dante made a significant contribution contributions to the early Renaissance and many of his ideas and themes were developed by later writers, artists, and thinkers. Dante contributed to the development of humanism, the use of the vernacular in literature and challenged the hegemonic nature of the Church and these helped to generate the cultural and intellectual changes known as the Renaissance, which transformed the world forever.
====Life of Dante====
The poet was born into one of the leading families in Florence. His mother died when he was twelve, and he was contracted while still a young boy in marriage to a girl who belonged to another leading family. At some time, he saw and fell in love with a young girl called Beatrice, and she was the love of his life and became his muse. Dante married Gemma Donati, but he remained in love with Beatrice even after her untimely death. The death of his beloved led to the poet studying philosophy and theology, as he sought some meaning in life.
Dante, like his family, belonged to one of the main factions in the city whose politics were often bloody. Florence was divided between the pro-Imperial Ghibellines and those who supported the Papacy known as the Guelfs. The origin of this dispute lay in the various conflicts between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. The poet fought at the Battle of Campaldino (1289) when the city’s Guelph faction defeated the Arezzo Ghibellines. After the victory, the Guelph factions changed the constitution and Dante had to enroll in a Guild, an association of tradesmen to remain a citizen.<ref>Gilson, S.A., [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521100186/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521100186&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=15ff5776a470de1557e4bd4dec91f74a Dante and Renaissance Florence ] (Vol. 56) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), p 113</ref> [[File: Dante 3.jpg|200px|thumb|left|A 19th century painting of Dante in Hell]]
However as was typical of the fractious politics in Late Medieval Italy, the Guelphs soon divided into ideological lines, and they became two mutually hostile factions the White and Black Guelphs. The White Guelphs, the party of Dante eventually expelled their former allies and colleagues. However, the Whites returned with the support of Charles Valois and ousted the Black faction from the government of the city, and this led to the exiling of many prominent Florentines.<ref>Gilson, p 114</ref>
Dante was exiled due to trumped up charges of corruption. Dante could have returned to his native city if he swore an oath to the Whites and paid a fine. He refused to do both, and this was unsurprising because he had integrity.<ref>Raffa, Guy P. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226702707/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0226702707&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=24706d0e14fc3d9049e3520d13d88844 The Complete Dante worldsDanteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy ] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p 5</ref>. Moreover, he was a party to several attempts to expel the Black Guelphs,’ but these were all failures. Dante became a permanent exile. He was forced to wander Italy. He became dependent on the generosity of powerful nobles.
In 1306, he was in Bologna but was later forced to leave with the other Florentine exiles. It appears that he ended up in Padua for a time and he may have even visited Paris. Dante found exile daunting and wrote ‘how hard a path it is for one who goes ascending and descending others' stairs.’’<ref> Dante, Paradiso, XVII (55–60)</ref> But it was during his period of exile that he concentrated on his poetry and prose works. Exile may have difficult, but it made him extremely productive.
====Conclusion====
Dante composed one of the great literary work in Italian if not all literature. His Divine Comedy is an enduring literary masterpiece that has and will stand the test of time. However, the Florentine he was much more than a great poet and he made a significant contribution to the Renaissance. His helped to fashion the poetry of the period and decisively changed the direction of Western literature. Dante helped to raise the Tuscan dialect into the national literary language of Italy. He helped to establish established vernacular languages as literary languages and demonstrated that great writers did not have to use Latin, and this is was perhaps his greatest contribution to the Renaissance. Dante was a forerunner of the humanist movement, because he argues argued that this life had value and that the individual while a part of the community was significant and had a right to self-expression and even happiness. The poet was also an original political and religious thinker and he argued for the then dangerous idea of a separation of church and state. This persuaded many humanists to adopt a more secular approach that was such a feature of civic humanism. However, it should be noted that the Florentine was also Dante still had a medieval in outlook and he would have disapproved of some of the aspects of the Renaissance in the 15-16th century. Regardless, Dante can be considered because of his immense contributions one of the founders of the Renaissance.
====Further Reading====
Fortin, Ernest L. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073910327X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=073910327X&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=17f950ed573ce140e1cf1344999c339b Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Dante and his precursors]. (Leington, Lexington Books, 2002).
Gardiner, Eileen, ed. Visions of heaven and hell before Dante (New York: Italica Press, 1989).
Keen, Catherine. Dante and the City (London, Tempus, 2003).
Dante. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143107194/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0143107194&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=a8a12c048ea535549df2a813834edb78 Divine Comedy translated by Frank Musa ] (London, Penguin Books, 1987, 3 vols). {{MediaWiki:AmNative}}
====References====
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{{Contributors}}[[Category:Renaissance History]] [[Category:Wikis]] [[Category:Italian History]]
