-
Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy
-
Consisting of three endecasillabial verses,it is called a "chain rhyme" because it consists of cross rhymes. The scheme is this: ABA, BCB, CDC, DED, etc. and Dante was the first to use it. A classic example of the famous intro of Hell demonstrates its beauty and simplicity In the middle of the journey of our lives(A)
I found myself in a dark forest(B)
Because the straight way was lost(A) Alas what it was hard (B)
Wild and rugged and strong forest(C)
That in the pensire renews fear(B) -
Much of Dante's work is devoted to the figure of Beatrice, met at the age of nine and died young, after marrying another man. It's all very romantic, isn't it? However, the good Dante had a wife and four children, who were probably not very happy with this unrequited love. Dante married Gemma Dontai at a young age, but there are no direct and explicit allusions to his wife or to one of his children: Jacopo, Peter, Giovanni and Antonia
-
It is said that Dante always loved to sit on the usual stone, precisely at today's civic no 54 in Piazza Duomo in Florence, while watching the construction of the basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore. One day a passer-by asked him what his favorite dish was. "The Ovo," the bard replied. After a year, the same man met Dante, sitting on his favorite stone, and asked him at point-blank range, "With what?" Dante immediately replied, "Co' the salt."
-
Maybe if you studied him in high school, you might not have considered Dante to be a "modern" writer, but in many ways he was really ahead of his time. In addition to being one of the first to abandon the use of Latin for literary texts; created the idea of Limbo,where innocent people, who were not Christian, could rest in peace. It sounds like platitudes, but before that it was a common belief that babies born dead, or not baptized, and pagans ended up directly in hell.
-
The Tuscan poet was also a politician and was sent into exile. A member of the white guelfi,Dante was forced to abandon Florence when the black guelfi came to power. He died in Ravenna in 1321 without ever seeing Florence again. Only in 2008, the Culture Commission of Palazzo Vecchio voted for his rehabilitation.
-
Dante had a reputation as an honest man; a legend states that, when he was exiled from Florence, a masked Dante was stopped by the authorities who asked him if he knew where Dante was. Although his life was in danger, he was so determined not to lie that he tricked them into saying, "When I was going down the street, he didn't pass me."
-
During his stay at the court of the Scaligeri, it was clear that the lords of Verona cared more about the court buffoon than the High. When someone pointed out to him that indecorous situation, the Tuscan genius answered without breaking down: "I am not surprised at all: every like him loves his fellow man".
-
The Poet is called into play in one of the most irreverent songs of the minstrel Riccardo Marasco, "The Flood" linked to the flood of Florence in 1966. "Dante of marble, divine poet, aims outraged the huge mess "Or Florentines you have exiled me... take the shit God sent you!"
-