Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is an epic narrative poem composed by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and 1320.[1][2] It recounts the protagonist's allegorical journey through the three realms of the afterlife—Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise)—beginning on Good Friday in the year 1300, with Dante guided first by the Roman poet Virgil through Hell and Purgatory, and then by Beatrice through Paradise.[3][4] Written during Dante's exile from Florence, the work blends autobiography, theology, philosophy, and medieval politics into a vision of divine justice and human salvation.[5][6] Structured as three canticles—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—each comprising 33 cantos (with an additional introductory canto in Inferno, yielding 100 total), the poem employs terza rima, an innovative interlocking rhyme scheme of tercets (ABA BCB CDC) that Dante invented to evoke perpetual motion toward divine understanding.[7][8] Composed in the Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin, it elevated the dialect to literary prestige, laying foundational influence on the development of modern Italian as a unified language and profoundly shaping Italian literature and national identity.[9][10] Widely acclaimed as the cornerstone of Italian literary tradition, the Divine Comedy first appeared in printed form in 1472 and continues to exert enduring impact on Western art, thought, and cosmology through its vivid cosmology and moral framework.[11][12]Composition and Historical Context
Dante Alighieri's Background and Motivations
Dante Alighieri, born Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri in Florence during May 1265, came from a lineage of minor nobility that had lost much of its former wealth.[13] His father, Alighiero II di Bellincione, belonged to the Guelph faction supporting papal authority against the Ghibelline imperialists, while his mother, Bella, died when Dante was young.[14] Raised in a period of intense factional strife in Florence, Dante received an education typical of the era's urban elite, encompassing grammar, rhetoric, and exposure to classical authors like Virgil and Ovid, alongside Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology.[15] By his late teens, he began composing poetry influenced by the dolce stil novo movement, focusing on courtly love.[13] In 1285, Dante married Gemma Donati from a prominent Guelph family, with whom he had several children, though his affections remained fixated on Beatrice Portinari, encountered first at age nine in 1274 and seen again at eighteen.[16] Beatrice's death in 1290 profoundly shaped his early work La Vita Nuova (c. 1295), a prosimetrum idealizing her as a symbol of spiritual elevation rather than consummated romance.[17] Politically active as a White Guelph—favoring limited papal interference in Florence—he served as one of the city's seven priors in June 1300, a key executive role.[15] The Black Guelphs, allied with Pope Boniface VIII, seized power, leading to Dante's condemnation in absentia in January 1302 on charges of financial misconduct; he refused to pay the imposed fine, resulting in perpetual exile and a death sentence if he returned.[18] Wandering through courts in Verona, Lucca, and Ravenna, Dante's exile fueled his motivations for the Divine Comedy, begun around 1308 and completed shortly before his death on September 14, 1321, in Ravenna from malaria.[14] The poem served as a vehicle for personal vindication, embedding political adversaries like Boniface VIII in Inferno's depths while exalting figures aligned with his vision of imperial authority over corrupt ecclesiastical power.[19] Spiritually, it mapped a pilgrim's journey through sin, purgation, and divine vision, drawing from Dante's midlife crisis at age 35 in 1300—evoking the biblical Psalm 90:10—to pursue salvation amid despair.[20] Beatrice's role as Paradiso's guide transformed personal loss into theological allegory, representing grace and beatific revelation.[21] Intellectually, Dante aimed to synthesize classical reason with Christian doctrine in the vernacular, aspiring to rival Virgil's Aeneid and establish Italian as a literary language worthy of eternal themes.[15]