Dante Alighier Divina Commedia Boccaccio Verona Italy Italian
Dante was born in 1265, and he tells us he was born under the sign of Gemini, placing his birthday between May 18th and June 17th. As an infant, Dante may have been originally christened 'Durante' in Florence's Baptistery, and the name Dante could be a shortened version of that name. He was born into the prominent Alighieri family of Florence, with loyalties to the Guelfs, a political alliance that supported the Papacy, involved in complex opposition to the Ghibellines, who were backed by the Holy Roman Emperor. These factions fashioned their names after the ones of opposing factions of German Imperial politics, centered around the noble families the Welfs (Guelfs or Guelphs) and Waiblingen (Ghibellines), but adapting their meaning to the Italian political arena. After the defeat of the Ghibellines by the Guelfs in 1289, the Guelfs themselves were divided into White Guelfs, who were wary of Papal influence, and Black Guelfs who continued to support the Papacy. Dante (a White Guelf) pretended that his family descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the earliest relative he can mention by name is Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), of no earlier than about 1100. Dante's father, Alighiero de Bellincione, was a White Guelf who suffered no reprisals after the Ghibellines won the Battle of Montaperti. This suggests that Alighiero or his family enjoyed some protective prestige and poet's mother was Donna Gabriella degli Abati. She died when Dante was 5 or 6 years old, and Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. (It is uncertain whether he really married her, as widowers had social limitations in these matters.) This woman definitely bore two children, Dante's brother Francesco and sister Tana (Gaetana).When Dante was 12, in 1277, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of Messer Manetto Donati. Contracting marriages at this early age was quite common, and involved a formal ceremony, includ
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