Abstract
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was a poet whose work was influenced both by his political experiences and by his study of philosophy. Born in Florence, he was educated in grammar and rhetoric and reports in his Convivio that he studied philosophy at the “schools of the religious,” probably the studia at Florence’s Franciscan and Dominican houses. Until his exile, he was an active participant in civic life, as a guild member, communal councilor, and prior. He was exiled in early 1302 after his faction, the Whites, was replaced by the Blacks (with the not-so-covert support of Boniface VIII). He never returned to Florence, dying in Ravenna in 1321.
Except for the early collection of lyric poems, the Vita nuova, most of his works were composed during his exile. Convivio is an unfinished encyclopedic work on human knowledge. Monarchia argues for a single universal ruler, who should be the Roman emperor and not the pope. The Divine Comedy brings together many of these philosophical and political themes, transformed into a masterpiece of imaginative literature.
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Bibliography
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Rupp, T. (2011). Dante Alighieri. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_137
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