Dante Alighieri once wrote the following quote, “Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.” Born in Florence, Italy under the "sign of Gemini," sometime between mid-May and mid-June of 1265, he was raised by his mother and father, Alighiero and Bella. His family had a history of involvement in the complex Florentine political scene that influences his later inferno years. Though before politics there was love at first sight. Alighieri led an obstacle of a life since it’d began but he will always be known as one of the greatest writers of his time.
In 1272 unfortunately, Alighieri along with his sister undergo the loss of a mother. Though soon after her death, his father remarries a woman named Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi, who delivers Dante's half-brother Francesco and half-sister Gaetana. At the age of nine on May 1, 1274, little Alighieri discovers his first love, his neighbor’s younger daughter Beatrice Portinari. The next year Alighieri enrolls at the convent schools of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Only two years pass until he is to wed Gemma di Manetto Donati. In 1882, Dante completes his
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A huge political frenzy follows, with all sitting Priors (Alighieri included) ousted and new priors elected. Unfortunately, Alighieri learns that the new priors have charged him with barratry, the sale of political positions. As punishment, he is exiled from Florence for two years and barred from public office for life. He is also ordered to pay a fine. When he refuses to pay the fine, Dante - along with fourteen others- is sentenced to death in absentia. He never returns to Florence, the city of his birth, and spends the rest of his life exiled in Italy. He then begins the Commedia, a three-part poem largely autobiographical - detailing the journey of Dante the pilgrim through Hell, Purgatory and