Dante Alighieri

Who was Dante Alighieri?

Durante degli Alighieri, simply referred to as Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called La Comedia and later called Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.

In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta or just il Poeta. He, Petrarch and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language".

Famous Quotes:

• For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?
• A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.
• The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.
• Abandon all hope, you who enter here!
• These have not the hope to die.
• Follow your own star!
• Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from the eternal.
• There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand eddies in a whirlwind.
• The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.
• Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.