Dante's Inferno

Dante

In 1265, when Dante Alighier was born, he could see all of Florence's current landmarks the city already existed in its current magnificent form

Dante was a member of a fairly prestigious and wealthy family-they were part of the wealth party (the party which during the investiture controversy supported the papacy against the emperor)

Party was divided into black and white and Dante belonged to the whites.

Dante was 9 when he saw Beatrice for the first time and she was 8

Dante saw her only twice, and they married other people, she was his muse-when she died in 1290 Dante was torn apart

In 1301 Dante was exiled from Florence because the whites had lost out to the blacks-lived the rest of his life in exile

"The bread of the exile always tastes salty"

Dante obtained good education at the University of Paris

In 1302 Dante began to compose the Divine Comedy-this was a story of pilgrimage of the soul and of every Christian

Dante began to compose the poem in 1302 "Divine Comedy"-this was a story of pilgrimage and soul and of every Christian-it took him the rest of his life to finish

It is broken into 3 parts, each with 33 cantos. Dante saw Beatrice as a numerical talisman, and thus repeated the number 3 throughout

The most significant part of the text was Inferno-he used inferno to make a social commentary on Florence and Italy

There comes a time in your life when you stop looking at what has been and considering what will be

Dante has lost his world and his way, and then Virgil appears (Virgil is the greatest Greek poet) Virgil leads Dante through hell and purgatory, then to heaven

This was a courtly poem of incredible dimensions, dedicated to Beatrice- it was a political poem about the factions and wars of his time, the practices of the clergy

The construction of hell and paradise was Ptolemaic in nature- inferno had many different levels which Dante had to move through before going to purgatory

There are those who do not deserve to be in heaven or hell. They are the people who never embrace anything and have no passion and are always indifferent and indecisive.

First circle of hell (limbo) are all the great pagans philosophers who cannot go to heaven because they lived before Christ

Second is the circle of hell are the lustful (here we see story of Francesca and Paolo)

Francesca was married to Paolo's brother- while reading Lancelot they fell in love and kissed each other- in