The school’s patron, Dante Alighieri is considered one of Italy’s most important poets and writers. Son of Alighiero and Bella, he was born in Florence, in north-central Italy. At the time, the city was a wealthy autonomous commune with a republican government and 90,000 inhabitants, one of the most populous cities in Europe.
The Alighieri were a Guelph family, of ancient urban nobility. After his studies, Dante pursued the liberal arts. He trained in arms and cavalry and, at the age of 24, took part in the Battle of Campaldino. At 18, Dante discovered himself to be a poet, at the same time as his platonic love for Beatrice, his great and eternal muse, emerged.
Much more than a literary man, at the age of 30, Dante began his political life in Florence, and at the same time married Gemma Donati, who belonged to a politically very important family. The poet was a member of the Captain’s Special Council and twice of the Council of Five Hundred. He was ambassador for the Commune in San Gimignano and, from June to August 1300, one of the six priors (the supreme governing body of Florence).
However, political involvement brought a series of problems for Dante, especially when Pope Boniface VIII decided to occupy Florence militarily. In 1300, Dante was preparing the resistance of the Guelphs to defend municipal autonomy. The endeavor, however, was unsuccessful and, some time later, the artist was sentenced to two years’ exile and a heavy fine.
Failure to pay the fine condemned him to perpetual exile. It was at the beginning of his exile that the poet began to sketch what would become his supreme work, “The Divine Comedy,” a poem made up of one hundred cantos divided into three books: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante was never able to return to Florence, dying in the city of Ravenna, probably of malaria, in 1321, at the age of 56.
