Today we will visit the house-museum of Dante Alighieri in Florence.
This is the house where he once lived.
Bust Dante Alighieri on the facade of the house-museum Dante.
In Florence it is easy to find the ancient quarter where the Alighieri family lived. There, a stone's throw from his home, near the Church of Santa Margherita on a street with the same name, nine-year-old Dante first met Beatrice Portinari.
The painting depicts Dante's second meeting with Beatrice.
Dante's belongings were not preserved. But in the house-museum there are a lot of paintings, reproductions, books, maps and various interesting documents telling about his life. For example, a model of Florence from the 13th century with those same residential skyscraper towers. Or a model of the battlefield between the Guelphs and the Gibbelins (which is cool, now in Florence there are streets of both) in one village near Florence with a hundred tin soldiers in full medieval uniform with family flags and coats of arms.
Family coat of arms (Guelphs). 
So who is Dante Alighieri?
He was known to his contemporaries no longer as a poet, but as a politician who suffered a fiasco and was expelled from his native Florence, and also as the author of treatises in Latin. His poetic talent received wide recognition only at the end of his life, when handwritten copies of “Hell” and “Purgatory” - the first two parts (“edge”) of the poem, called simply “Comedy” by the author, began to be distributed throughout Italy. “Divine”, that is, beautiful, above all praise, she was called by one of the first biographers of the poet Giovanni Boccaccio.
Nobility of blood
Great-great-grandfather Dante (diminutive of Durante), a knight in the retinue of the Holy Roman Emperor, fought valiantly against the Saracens during the Second Crusade (1147 - 1149). The poet told a story about his genealogy in the Divine Comedy, ending it with a sad remark: “Oh, the meager nobleness of our blood!” The family became poor, and Dante's father, Alaghiero de Alighieri, had to become a money changer. According to rumors, he did not neglect usury, which is prohibited by law. The poet wrote about himself that he was born when Gemini replaced Taurus. The exact date of his birth in 1265 remains unknown, and Dante's anniversaries are usually celebrated at the end of May.
His mother Gabriella died when the boy was five or six years old. The father remarried, and Dante, along with his younger sister, and then his half-brother and sister, was raised by his stepmother. There is not a word about her, like about his father, who died when Dante was 12 years old, in his poems and prose. He never wrote about his mother, sisters and brother. Obviously, the memories of them were not bright and joyful. But for his teacher Brunetto Latini, he found the following words in the poem: “In me lives... your fatherly image, sweet and heartfelt.” Brunetto Latini - writer, translator, scientist - was not Dante's teacher in the usual sense of the word. He supervised his education when he had already learned the basics of grammar, rhetoric, and theology at school. Dante read and wrote Latin and knew French. Brunetto introduced Dante to poetry and guided his first steps in versification. It must be assumed that Dante loved drawing and music. His plastic sense is evident, as Boccaccio notes, from the clarity of his images.
Dante found friends in his youth in the artistic, musical and literary environment. So, for example, Casella, the then famous singer, was apparently very friendly with Dante, since even in “Purgatory” Casella, having met the poet, assures him of his love, and Dante recalls his singing, which “quenched there are all sorts of sorrows in it.” Dante was also friendly with the artist Cimabue, with the then famous miniaturist Oderisi and with Giotto, that reformer of Italian art in the sense of painting. There is a beautiful portrait of the young Dante, copied from him by Giotto, probably in the period of time 1290-1295, and only recently, in 1840 year,! open on wall of the Chapel del Podesta in Florence. Dante's close friends were the poets Lapo Giani, Cino da Pistoia, and especially Guido Cavalcanti. With Cino da Pistoia, who was younger than Dante on five years, a famous lawyer and one of the best lyricists of the time, later a teacher of Petrarch, Dante apparently came together later, during his exile.
Shocked by love. Lifelong love
The most outstanding, primary event of Dante's youth was his love for Beatrice. He first saw her when they were both still children: he was 9, she was 8 years. “The young angel,” as the poet puts it, appeared before his eyes in an outfit that children's age: Beatrice was dressed in a “noble” red color, she was wearing a noias, and she, according to Dante, immediately became “the mistress of his spirit.” “She seemed to me,” says Loet, “more like the daughter of God than of a mere mortal.” “From the very moment I saw her, love took possession of my heart to such an extent that I did not have the strength to resist it and, trembling with excitement , I heard a secret voice: Here is a deity that is stronger than you and will control you.”
"The First Meeting of Dante and Beatrice" Simeon Solomon
Ten years Later, Beatrice appears to him again, this time all in white. She walks down the street, accompanied by two other women, looks up at him and, thanks to her “inexpressible mercy,” bows to him so modestly and charmingly that it seems to him that he has seen “the highest degree of bliss.” Intoxicated with delight, the poet runs away from the noise of people, retires to his room to dream about his beloved, falls asleep and has a dream. Waking up, he expounds it in verse. This is an allegory in the form of a vision: love with Dante’s heart in its hands carries in its arms “a lady asleep and wrapped in a veil.” Cupid wakes her up, gives her Dante's heart and then runs away crying. This sonnet of 18-year-old Dante, in which he addresses the poets, asking them for an explanation of his dream, attracted the attention of many, including Guido Cavalcanti, who heartily congratulated new poet. Thus was the beginning of their friendship, which has never weakened since then. In his first poetic works, in sonnets and canzones, surrounding the image of Beatrice with a bright radiance and a poetic aura, Dante already surpasses all his contemporaries in the power of poetic talent, ability to speak language, as well as sincerity, seriousness and depth of feeling. Although he also still adheres to the same convention of form, the content is new: it has been experienced, it comes from the heart. Dante soon abandoned the form and manner handed down to him and took a new path. He contrasted the traditional feeling of worship of the Madonna of the troubadours with real, but spiritual, holy, pure love. He himself considers the truth and sincerity of his feelings to be the “mighty lever” of his poetry.
Painting by Henry Halliday "Dante and Beatrice"
Waterhouse, John William - Dante and Beatrice
The poet's love story is very simple. All events are the most insignificant. Beatrice passes him on the street and bows to him; he meets her unexpectedly at a wedding celebration and falls into such indescribable excitement and embarrassment that those present, and even Beatrice herself, mock him, and his friend must take him away from there. One of Beatrice's friends dies, and Dante composes two sonnets about this; he hears from other women how much Beatrice grieves over the death of her father... These are the events; but for such a high cult, for such love, of which the sensitive heart of a brilliant poet was capable, this is a whole inner story, touching in its purity, sincerity and deep religiosity.
Beatrice.
This such pure love is timid, the poet hides it from prying eyes, and his feeling remains a secret for a long time. In order to prevent other people's gaze from penetrating the sanctuary of the soul, he pretends to be in love with another, writes poetry to her.
But Dante’s other love for some Pietra, about whom he wrote four canzones, is of a different nature. Who this Pietra was is unknown, like much of the poet’s life; but the four canzones he mentions are believed to have been written by him before his exile. They contain the language of still youthful passion, youthful love, this time already sensual. Alongside mystical exaltation and the religious cult of the female ideal, sensual love was easily combined in those days; pure, chaste worship of a woman did not exclude what was then called “folle amore.” It is quite possible that, given his passionate temperament, Dante paid tribute to him and that he too had a period of storms and delusions.
It happened that the “lady of protection” left the city, and the poet considered it better to choose another lady instead of the one to keep the veil. The ladies noticed this and began to reproach Dante for his unworthy behavior, which reached Beatrice, and she refused him her “sweet greeting, which contained all my bliss,” according to the poet, which plunged him into the greatest grief.
He constantly shed tears, lost his face, became frail, and at that time he again saw Beatrice among other ladies, at the wedding of one of them, which only plunged him into new torment, and he was beside himself, and the ladies laughed at him, and what’s worse, Beatrice laughed at him with them.
Dante and Beatrice, from \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"L\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Estampe Moderne\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\", published Paris 1897-99 
You laughed at me among your friends,
But did you know, Madonna, why
You can't recognize my appearance,
When I stand before your beauty?
Oh, if only you knew - with the usual kindness
You couldn't contain your feelings:
After all, it is Love that has captivated me all,
Tyrannizes with such cruelty,
That, reigning among my timid feelings,
Having executed some, sent others into exile,
She alone directs her gaze to you.
That's why my appearance is unusual!
But even then their exiles
So clearly I hear the grief.
It seems that the noble ladies brought the young poet to light, with his tricks of running around with the veil, they could not - or Beatrice - not guess who the real lady of his heart was. Dante, as a young man, hid his feelings, although all his experiences were reflected in his appearance and behavior, not to mention his sonnets.
Rumors begin, and, apparently, Beatrice is jealous and does not respond to his bow. 
Rossetti. Beatrice. Having met Dante at the wedding feast, he refuses to greet him.
I heard my heart awaken
The spirit of love that slumbered there;
Then in the distance I saw Love
So joyful that I doubted her.
She said: “It’s time to bow down
You are in front of me...” - and there was laughter in the speech.
But I only listened to the mistress,
Her dear gaze fixed on me.
And Monna Bath with Monna Beach I
I saw them coming to these lands -
Behind a wondrous miracle is a miracle without an example;
And, as it is stored in my memory,
Love said: “This one is Primavera,
And that one is Love, we are so similar to her.”
Michael Parkes, portraits of Dante and Beatrice
Some biographers not so long ago doubted the real existence of Beatrice and tried to consider her simply an allegory, without real content. But now it has been documented that Beatrice, whom Dante loved, glorified, mourned and exalted as an ideal of the highest moral and physical perfection, is undoubtedly a historical figure, the daughter of Folco Portinari, who lived in the neighborhood of the Alighieri family and was born in April 1267.
This family even had its own church.
The date of foundation of the Church of St. Margaret is 1076, that is, in 1276 the building entered its third century.
In January 1287 she married Sismon di Bardi, and on June 9, 1290, she died at age 23, shortly after her father.
This church is now called the Church of Dante. It is very modest and there are few visitors here. But she simply enveloped us in her comfort. It's hard to find a more romantic place! By the way, Beatrice is buried there. On her tombstone there is a bouquet of flowers, and nearby there are two baskets where people put notes with their deepest desires. It is believed that Beatrice will definitely perform them!
Beatrice's life was short, she was 23 years old. Dante took her death so hard that “... he became thin, overgrown with a beard and ceased to look at all like before,” Boccaccio wrote according to the recollections of people who personally knew the poet.
Dante's first book, “New Life,” contains poems and prose commentaries on them, written over 10 years - from 1283 to 1293. All of them are inspired by the love of Beach Portinari. But after the “New Life”, Dante decided that he would not write anything more about it until he found such lofty words that it really deserves: “For this I study as much as I can,” the poet wrote.
A few years after the death of Beatrice - exactly when is unknown, but apparently in 1295 - Dante married a certain Gemma da Manetto Donati. Their parents betrothed them as children for political reasons: Donati, like Alighieri, were Guelphs - they were part of the party of supporters of the power of the Pope and were at enmity with the party of the Ghibellines, supporters of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Previous biographers report that the poet had seven children from her, but according to the latest research there are only three of them: two sons, Pietro and Jacopo, and a daughter, Antonia.” Very little information has been preserved about the poet’s wife, Gemma. Apparently she outlived her husband; at least as early as 1333, her signature appears on one document. According to information reported by Boccaccio, Dante no longer saw his wife after his expulsion from Florence, where she remained with the children. Many years later, at the end of his life, the poet called his sons to him and took care of them. In his writings, Dante never says anything about Gemma. But this was a common occurrence in those days: none of the poets of that time touched on their family relationships. The wife was destined to play a prosaic role in that era; she remained completely outside the poetic horizon; Next to the feeling that was given to her, another, considered higher, could perfectly exist. Boccaccio and some other biographers claim that Dante’s marriage was unhappy. But nothing positive is known about this; The only thing that is true is that this marriage was concluded without any romantic lining: it was something like a business agreement to fulfill a social duty - one of those marriages, of which there are many now.
In his declining years, creating the last part of the “Divine Comedy” - “Paradise”, the poet turns in it to the beloved of his youth, Beatrice, “... with that prayer in his gaze with which a child looks for his mother and runs to her in fear or grief.” The unrequited love for Beatrice, which Dante carried throughout his life, also made up for his sense of filial affection for his mother, which he was deprived of in childhood.
Mary Stillman. Beatrice (1895)
Dante himself talks about his love in “Vita nuova” (“New Life”), a collection of prose mixed with poems, which was dedicated by the poet Guido Cavalcanti.
Beneath the clothes of a scientist, Dante’s heart beats pure, young, sensitive, open to impressions, easily inclined to adoration and despair; he is gifted with a fiery imagination that takes him high above the earth, into the kingdom of dreams. His love for Beatrice has all the signs of his first youthful love. This is spiritual, holy worship of a woman, and not passionate love for her. Beatrice is more an angel than a woman for Dante; she seems to fly through this world on wings, barely touching it, until she returns to the better one from where she came, and therefore love for her is “the road to goodness, to God.” This love of Dante for Beatrice embodies the ideal of platonic, spiritual love in its highest development. Those who asked why the poet did not marry Beatrice did not understand this feeling. Dante did not strive to possess his beloved; her presence, her bow - that’s all he desires, that fills him with bliss. Only once, in the poem “Guido, I would like...”, his fantasy captivates him, he dreams of fabulous happiness, of leaving with his sweetheart far from cold people, staying with her in the middle of the sea in a boat, only with a few, dearest friends. But this beautiful poem, where the mystical veil rises and the sweetheart becomes close and desired, Dante excluded from the collection “Vita nuova”: it would have been a dissonance in its general tone.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Greetings to Beatrice
One might think that Dante, worshiping Beatrice, led an inactive, dreamy life. Not at all - pure, high love only gives new, amazing strength. Thanks to Beatrice, Dante tells us, he emerged from the ranks of ordinary people. He began to write early, and she was the stimulus for his writing. “I had no other teacher in poetry,” he says in “Vita nuova,” “except myself and the most powerful teacher - love.” All the lyrics of “Vita nuova” are imbued with a tone of deep sincerity and truth, but its true muse is sorrow. Indeed, Dante's brief love story has rare glimpses of clear, contemplative joy; the death of Beatrice's father, her sadness, the premonition of her death and her death are all tragic motives. The premonition of Beatrice's death runs through the entire collection. Already in the first sonnet, in the first vision, a short Cupid's joy turns into bitter crying, Beatrice is carried to heaven. Then, when Beatrice’s friend is abducted by death, the blessed spirits express a desire to have her in their midst.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Dante's dream during the death of Beatrice
When Beatrice died, the poet was 25 years old. The death of his beloved was a heavy blow for him. His grief borders on despair - he himself wants to die, and only in death does he expect consolation. Life, homeland - everything suddenly turned into a desert for him. As Dante cries about the lost paradise about the deceased Beatrice. But his nature was too healthy and strong for him to die of grief. From his great sorrow, the poet seeks peace in the pursuit of science.
Jean Leon Jerome Dante
Usually the ideas of great poetic works do not appear suddenly and are not realized immediately; the thought of them lurks for a long time in the poet’s soul, develops little by little, takes root deeper and deeper, expands and transforms, until, finally, the mature product of long, invisible inner work comes into the light of God. So it was with The Divine Comedy. The first thought about his great poem arose, apparently, in Dante’s mind very early. Already “New Life” serves as a prelude to the “Divine Comedy”.
The name “Comedy” was given to his poem by Dante himself, and the epithet “Divine” was added by admiring posterity later, in the 16th century, not because of the content of the poem, but as a designation of the highest degree of perfection of Dante’s great work. 1 “The Divine Comedy” does not belong to any specific type of poetry: it is a completely original, one-of-a-kind mixture of all elements of various types of poetry.
The continuation of Dante's love story for Beatrice in The Divine Comedy, and there this love takes on a new level - love-immortality.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise
She keeps Love in her eyes;
Blessed is all that she looks upon;
As she walks, everyone hurries to her;
If he greets you, his heart will tremble.
So, he is all confused, he will bow his face down
And he sighs about his sinfulness.
Arrogance and anger melts before her.
O donnas, who would not praise her?
All the sweetness and all the humility of thoughts
He who hears her word will know.
Blessed is he who is destined to meet her.
The way she smiles
The speech does not speak and the mind does not remember:
So this miracle is blissful and new.
Dante and Beatrice.
So noble, so modest
Madonna, returning the bow,
That near her the tongue is silent, confused,
And the eye does not dare to rise to her.
She walks, does not heed the delights,
And her camp is clothed in humility,
And it seems: brought down from heaven
This ghost comes to us, and it shows a miracle here.
She brings such delight to the eyes,
That when you meet her, you find joy,
Which the ignorant will not understand,
And it’s as if it comes from her lips
The spirit of love pouring sweetness into the heart,
Firmly to the soul: “Breathe...” - and he will sigh
Dante and Beatrice.
Whose spirit is captivated, whose heart is full of light,
To all those before whom my sonnet will appear,
Who will reveal to me the meaning of its deafness,
In the name of Lady Love, greetings to them!
Already a third of the hours when given to the planets
Shine stronger, completing your path,
When Love appeared before me
Such that it’s scary for me to remember this:
Love walked in joy; and on the palm
Mine held my heart; and in your hands
She carried the Madonna, sleeping humbly;
And, having awakened, she gave the Madonna a taste
From the heart,” and she ate it with confusion.
Then Love disappeared, all in tears.
Rossetti. First anniversary of Beatrice's death: Dante draws an angel
As Guelph
Dante studies philosophy from the works of Boethius, Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Aquinas, theology from the Dominican monks of the Church of Santa Maria Novella and the Franciscans of the Church of Santa Croce. During the year at the University of Bologna he attends lectures on law, philosophy and medicine. He tried his hand at warfare and in 1289 took part in battles against the Ghibellines, who held power in some Tuscan cities. But a military career does not appeal to him. At the age of 30, Dante begins to engage in politics. In Florence, everyone knows him as a prudent, educated and balanced person; he is elected to the Council of the People and to the Priory - the government. According to family tradition, Dante is a Guelph. But he speaks out in the Signoria both against the rich magnates, whose interests were represented by part of his own party, and against the intentions of Pope Boniface VIII to subjugate the Florentine Republic. In 1300, strife broke out within the Guelph party itself. It is split into blacks - mostly bankers and tycoons, and whites - representatives of the craft people and small merchants. Dante was also a member of the guild of doctors and pharmacists, the only one accessible to intellectuals. The black Guelphs, led by his wife's brother Corso Donati, provoke bloody battles with the whites. Dante, who at this time held the position of prior, proposes to expel the instigators of the massacre, including his brother-in-law, from the city.
In exile
The years of exile began.
"Dante in Exile", painting by Sir Frederic Leighton
In the treatise “The Feast”, Dante wrote in one of the digressions: “...I, like a stranger, almost a beggar, went beyond all the limits where my native speech penetrates.” This was a search for shelter among the lords who headed numerous Italian duchies and city-states. Dante, finding time for literary work, performs the duties of a secretary, librarian, and takes on diplomatic assignments. In 1308 - 1309 he was in Paris, where he took part in university debates. Dante had a phenomenal memory. There is evidence that during one of the debates at the Sorbonne, 14 opponents spoke out against Dante, each with their own theological theme. He exactly repeated the wording of the topics proposed to him and brilliantly substantiated his counterarguments. This debate was similar to a simultaneous chess game that the grandmaster won on 14 boards.
Shortly before his exile, in 1300, “having completed half his earthly life,” Dante began his “virtual,” as we would say now, journey to hell, purgatory and heaven. But often he had to interrupt work on the poem and create prose or mixed works, like “The Feast” (Convivio) - a feast of knowledge, reason, and love, where poetry is combined with prose comments.
He knows that when his children turn 14, they will suffer the same fate as exiles as their father. Therefore, it is necessary that his name become widely known and respected. Then they could find a second home outside of Florence. And for this we need essays in Latin, which then served as a means of intellectual communication in Italy and abroad.
The treatise “On the Eloquence of the Popular Language” (De vulgari eоquenzia) was also written in Latin, which, according to Dante, would become a national language in Italy. The fact that Italian is called the language of Dante is not a metaphor. He really stood at the origins of the modern Italian literary language.
Another of his works in Latin is called "Monarchy". Dante moved away from the ideology of the Guelphs, who continued to quarrel both with the Ghibellines and among themselves, shedding the blood of their own like-minded people. But he did not see in Italy a force that could unite the country, and pinned his hopes on some kind of world empire centered in Rome, similar to the ancient one, which would give the world freedom, justice and prosperity. Philosophical, moral, political, religious problems are also reflected in The Divine Comedy.
In medieval literature, the descent into hell was a traditional plot. But Dante, unlike his predecessors, does not have an edifying description of the torments of hell. Sinners in The Divine Comedy continue to be tormented by human passions. Those who, having repented of their sins, “find purification” in order to enter heaven are placed in purgatory. The characters in "Comedy" are historical figures and contemporaries of the author. Full of drama, the story about the sinful lives of those who left this world is addressed to living people and, above all, to those in power. It was they who turned Italy into “a center of sorrow, a ship without a helm in a great storm.” The afterlife is depicted with such artistic power, so convincingly, that many of Dante’s contemporaries believed that the poet was descending into hell.
A year later, the political situation in Florence changes dramatically. Under the pretext of restoring order in the city, the brother of the French king, Charles Valois, occupies it with his guard. The black Guelphs took advantage of this and brought their supporters to power. Corso Donati returns and begins to take revenge on Dante. The poet's house was plundered, and he himself was put on trial on false charges of abuse of the republican treasury. Circumstances were such that Dante found himself outside of Florence at that moment. On January 27, 1302, he received a notice in Siena that he was sentenced to two years of exile from his hometown and a fine of five thousand florins. He was ordered to appear in court in Florence to testify. Dante did not do this, prudently believing that he might be imprisoned. On March 1, the verdict was revised, and this time he was sentenced to be burned at the stake.
A stranger among his own
On May 15, 1315, the authorities of Florence announce an amnesty to all those who were expelled from the city. But those amnestied must take part in a ceremony of repentance: walk through the city barefoot, dressed in burlap and with a paper cap on their head, on which should be written the name of the exile and what his crime was. Dante refused such humiliation. The hope of ever returning to Florence was lost forever.
At this time, he served in Verona as a secretary at the court of the local feudal lord Cangrande della Scala. Cangrande was rich and generous, patronized the arts and poetry, and kept a magnificent court. According to contemporaries, he was distinguished by his intelligence and artistic taste, but above all, he was a wayward warrior who professed the cult of strength. He equated the court poets with his jesters and circus performers, whom he kept to entertain the guests. One day, one of these jesters, having received an expensive, beautiful dress from the owner as a gift, showed it to Dante with the words: “And you, with all your wisdom, have never received such a gift.” The poet retorted: “The reason is simple: you are here among people like yourself. Me not". Giovanni Boccaccio noted that Dante was very scrupulous in matters of honor, knew his worth and highly valued self-esteem. In Verona, in conditions that were not always conducive to creativity, Dante continued to work on the poem, but when the opportunity presented itself, he happily left his “benefactor.”
In Ravenna and in Paradise
At the end of 1316 or at the beginning of 1317. Dante settled in Ravenna. By that time, “Hell” and “Purgatory” were already circulating around the country in many copies, bringing good money to the copyists, although Dante did not receive a penny for his gigantic work. The lord of Ravenna, Guido Novello da Polenta, was familiar with the cantics of the Comedy and invited their author to his place. In addition to the desire to satisfy his vanity with friendship with the famous poet, Guido Novello also had a personal reason for accepting the poet. Francesca da Polenta, whom Dante brought out in his poem as Francesca da Rimini, was Guido da Polenta's own aunt.
Children came to Ravenna to Dante - sons Jacopo and Pietro, daughter Antonia. The climate around him began to warm up: he was surrounded by relatives and people who highly valued his work, who themselves studied fine literature and considered themselves his students.
In Ravenna, Dante finishes the final part of the Comedy - "Paradise". Virgil, who led Dante through hell and purgatory, has no access to Christian heaven because he was a pagan, and the poet is met by his beloved Beatrice, illuminated by the light of Eternal Joy. She guides him through the heavenly spheres, where the souls of the righteous appear before him in the form of bright lights. The allegorical descriptions of heavenly virtues reflect the Christian-religious utopia of the kingdom of goodness, justice and harmony. Essentially, this is a hymn of love for God, the Mother of God and, of course, for Beatrice - he, as promised, was now able to find worthy words and glorify “the love that moves the sun and luminaries.”
Temptation with laurel wreath
portrait by Raphael.
One day, Dante received a letter from the University of Bologna with a proposal to write a poem in Latin on a theme from modern history. “Comedy,” the letter said, would never bring Dante recognition, because it was written in a vulgar folk language, unworthy of true poetic art. But for a work in Latin, Dante will be crowned in Bologna with a laurel wreath, the poet of poets, and the Harolds will announce the name of the new laureate everywhere.
The laurel wreath was Dante's cherished desire. But he wanted to receive high recognition in his homeland, in Florence. And since the way there was forbidden to him, he refused the flattering offer from Bologna.
When the last line of “Paradise” was written, Guido asked Dante to go to Venice on a diplomatic mission: to settle some issues between Verona and the Venetian Republic. Dante was a skilled diplomat. He had previously successfully coped with similar orders from other feudal lords and agreed to fulfill the mission entrusted to him.
On the way back, driving through the swampy lowlands of the mouth of the Po River, he fell ill with malaria. Endless wanderings, longing for his native Florence, the bitter bread of a foreign land, everyday disorder, and finally, titanic work on the poem, which required the exertion of all moral and physical strength - all this undermined the poet’s health. He was 56 years old when he became ill, but he looked much older. It became more difficult for him to resist malaria every day, and on the night of September 13-14, 1321, Dante’s heart could not stand it - he died.
Dante Alighieri was buried “with great honors,” as his biographers wrote. Guido da Polenta decorated the poet's brow with a laurel wreath, which he so dreamed of during his lifetime. At the funeral mass in the monastery of St. Francis, the coffin was carried by the most honorable citizens of Ravenna.
Dante Alighieri's funeral was held in this church.
Dante was buried on the territory of the same church of San Francesco, namely in its outer portico - back then they didn’t particularly like to bury people in the ground. Guido Novello de Polenta at first wanted to erect a mausoleum in his honor, but soon lost power, and this good intention sank into oblivion. And then an almost detective story began.
By the end of the 14th century, the authorities of Florence realized what a mistake their predecessors had made in depriving the city of the honor of being the resting place of the great poet. At the beginning of the 16th century, a native of the “city of flowers,” Leo X., became pope. By that time, Ravenna had become part of the papal state, and the Florentines turned to the pope for permission to transfer Dante’s remains to his hometown. Permission was received, and in 1519 a representative delegation went to Ravenna. But when the sarcophagus was opened, Dante’s coffin was empty...
An investigation began that led nowhere. The Florentines had to organize Dante's empty grave. It is now being shown to tourists.
Tombstone Dante Alighieri in the Basilica of Santa Croce
Monument at the entrance to the Basilica of Santa Croce.
Bones in a wooden box
Only years later it became clear that the Ravennian monks, sensing which way the wind was blowing, broke through the wall of Dante’s sarcophagus and stole his ashes, thereby breaking off the Florentines. The monks transported Dante’s remains to their other monastery. There they were placed in a wooden shrine and an epitaph was written. When Napoleon came to these parts in 1810, the monks hid the reliquary not far from the place where the mausoleum now stands. But they found it only in the middle of the 19th century. In May 1865, Italy was preparing to solemnly celebrate Dante's 600th birthday. In Ravenna, they began to repair the memorial complex at the monastery of St. Francis and put the neighboring buildings in order. Then a wooden box was accidentally discovered, buried at the entrance to a small chapel located next to the monastery. When they cleared the box of soil and mold, they saw the inscription: “Dante’s bones were placed here by the monk Antonio Santi on October 18, 1677.” Until this time, the poet's remains were apparently hidden in the monastery away from the Florentine missionaries who arrived in 1519.
The box actually contained a skull and parts of a human skeleton. The Ministry of Education sent an archaeologist and anthropologists to Ravenna to identify the remains. Scientists have confirmed: this is Dante. Then the remains were placed in a walnut box, then in a lead coffin and placed in a sarcophagus in the poet’s mausoleum. They are still there today.
True, during the Second World War, so that Dante’s remains were not damaged by bombing, they were temporarily moved to the garden next to the mausoleum. But now they are back in their place.
Dante's sarcophagus and his image with a lamp above it.
As for the mausoleum itself, it was built only in 1780. True, the urn that now contains Dante’s ashes is ancient. It was made a few years after his death.
Dante in the fresco of the Villa Carduccio by Andrea del Castagno (1450, Uffizi Gallery)
Bronzino. Allegorical portrait of Dante
DANTE ALIGHIERI, crowned with a laurel wreath in a portrait by Luca Signorelli (c. 1441-1523).
Dante and Beatrice, from ‘L’Estampe Moderne’, published Paris 1897-99
Dante and Beatrice. Meeting in Paradise
Rossetti - Blessing of Beatrice
“Fresco cycle in Casimo Massimo (Rome), Dante Hall, Empyrean and the eight heavens of Paradise. Fragment: Sky of the Sun. Dante and Beatrice between Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Peter of Lombardy and Siger of Paris"
White Philip
“Fresco cycle in Casimo Massimo (Rome), Dante Hall, Empyrean and the eight heavens of Paradise. Fragment: Sky of the Moon. Dante and Beatrice before Constance and Piccarda"
Delacroix, The Barque of Dante
W. Bouguereau Dante and Virgil in Hell
Vita Nuova. Dante and Beatrice
Dante's dream at the moment of Beatrice's death.
Vita Nuova (Dante and Beatrice)
Dante in the fresco by Domenico di Michelino,
with a copy of the “Divine Comedy” in his hands, at the entrance to Hell, against the backdrop of 7 terraces of Mount Purgatory,
near the city of Florence and the celestial spheres above.
Schemes of heaven, purgatory and hell, drawn based on the "Divine Comedy".
Hell. 
Purgatory. 
Paradise. 
In Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, Hell consists of nine circles; the lower the circle, the more serious the sins committed by a person during his lifetime. In addition to a clear structure, in general the concept reflects the Catholic ideas about hell that existed in the Middle Ages.
In front of entrance- pitiful souls who did neither good nor evil during their lives, including “a bad flock of angels” who were neither with the devil nor with God.
I circle (Limbo)- unbaptized infants and virtuous non-Christians.
II round- voluptuaries (fornicators and adulterers).
III circle- gluttons, gluttons and gourmets.
IV circle- Misers and spendthrifts.
V circle (Stygian swamp)- Angry and lazy.
VI circle- heretics and false teachers.
VII circle:
o I belt - rapists over their neighbor and over his property (tyrants and robbers).
o II belt - rapists against themselves (suicides) and against their property (gamblers and spendthrifts).
o III belt - rapists against the deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (extortion).
VIII circle. Those who deceived those who did not trust. Consists of ten ditches (Zlopazukha, or Evil Crevices).
o I ditch Pimps and seducers.
o II ditch Flatterers.
o III ditch Holy merchants, high-ranking clergy who traded in church positions.
o IV ditch Soothsayers, fortune tellers, astrologers, witches.
o V ditch Bribe takers, bribe takers.
o VI level Hypocrites.
o VII moat The thieves.
o VIII ditch Crafty advisors.
o IX ditch Instigators of discord.
o X ditch Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters.
IX circle - those who deceived those who trusted.
o Belt of Cain. Traitors to relatives.
o Antenor's belt. Traitors to the Motherland and like-minded people.
o Tolomei's Belt. Traitors to friends and dinner companions.
o Giudecca Belt. Traitors to benefactors, divine and human majesty.
o Satan himself.
The Church of St. Margaret was built in 1032. Over time, this small church, located in one of the narrow Florentine alleys, began to be called the Church of Dante, because the poet lived in this area. Dante's house-museum is also located nearby.
Dante's whole life, before his expulsion from Florence, was connected with this church. in it he married his wife Gemma Donati, who bore him children; her grave is also located here.
Here is also the tombstone of Beatrice Partinara, Dante’s beloved, who also got married (but not with Dante) in this church and rested in it after her early death at the age of 24.
Dante loved Beatrice until the end of his days; she was his muse.
Dante Alighieri lived from 1265 to 1321, he was one of the founders of literary Italian, the world remembers him as the author of the Divine Comedy.
There is very little factual information about Dante’s fate, his early years are unknown, the boy finished his school years quickly, probably the death of his father contributed to this.
Then Dante himself had to lay the foundations of his education; he read everything he could get his hands on.
As adolescence approached, his academic background began to grow very quickly: Dante studied both music and drawing, but only poetry really captivated him.
The education that Dante received gave more food to the imagination than to reason, and aroused imagination more than curiosity. And at this time he is covered with youthful love, and such that for the rest of his life.
Dante and Beatrice met when they were 9 years old, their houses were located nearby and there was nothing in their meetings and walks that would violate morals.
Between the ages of 9 and 18, Dante studied and developed. At 18 he finished his education and was already a poet. In 1283, when Beatrice, all dressed in white, passed by and bowed to Dante, he wrote his first sonnet and thus became a poet.
Over the years, his love for Beatrice grew, so much so that nothing else gave him either satisfaction or joy.
In 1290, when Beatrice unexpectedly died, Dante put together all the poems dedicated to her and thus the book “New Life” appeared.
The poet's nature was stormy and passionate. He also had hobbies, especially since Beatrice was married off, but his love suffering for his only woman resulted in sonnets that flew from his pen one after another.
In 1297, Dante got married. What kind of woman Gemma was is unknown.
It is known for sure that she had several children: the names of two sons Jacopo and Pietro and daughter Antonia are known, who after the death of her father went to a monastery and took the name Beatrice, dear to her father.
Dante's ashes are in Ravenna, where he spent the last years of his life.
On one of the ancient, narrow streets of the capital of Tuscany there is this rather small, seemingly ancient tower, in which is located Dante Museum. Why “seemingly”? But because this building is a reconstruction of the early nineteenth century. According to careful research, it was here that exactly the same house stood, which belonged to the Alighieri family. Documents from the 13th century have been preserved about a legal battle between this family and the priest of a neighboring church. The Holy Father was indignant that the fig tree, growing behind the neighbors’ fence, spread its roots too freely, thereby damaging the fence of the church garden. Nowadays, only part of the portal remains from that church. But ancient stones are the best indication of where it was necessary to create Dante Museum in Florence.
This is now Dante - one of the great poets, who is revered as the creator of the modern Italian language, the author of the Divine Comedy, and also the one who so touchingly told the world about his tender platonic love for Beatrice. And once he was an exile, sentenced to death. Florence, the same Florence that once even decided to steal, trying to illegally remove the ashes of its famous citizen from Ravenna, forced Dante to flee his hometown around 1302. After which he wandered around Italy and France for 20 years, forced to leave his wife and children without support or maintenance.
Inside the museum
Exposition Dante Museum composed mainly of gifts from enthusiasts, sculptures and paintings by various authors. They all talk about the life of the poet and his work. There are also several items that, according to employees, belonged personally to the owner of the house and his beautiful lover, Beatrice Portinari. It's probably not worth believing. It’s not for nothing that there is an opinion that the townspeople dismantled Alighieri’s house piece by piece after his escape. Where can some small things be preserved?
To view the exhibition you have to climb a narrow and steep staircase. But we must not forget that this is exactly what this house looked like seven centuries ago. And then they didn’t have the slightest idea about the ergonomics of housing.
The very first composition in Dante Museum in Florence talks about the life of this city during the poet’s life. This is followed by a room dedicated to the medieval guild of apothecaries and physicians (Dante belonged to it). Then - the room of the Battle of Campaldina (in which he participated at the age of 24) and a room dedicated to the great love of the great Alighieri. We rise to another floor and find ourselves in the world of “Dante’s condemnation”. And, at the very top - as a symbol of the pinnacle of creativity and a worthy outcome of a lifetime, there are exhibits telling about the “Divine Comedy”.
Afterword
Many people know the phrase written above the gates of Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon hope, all who enter here.” The author of these lines himself died without hope, in a foreign land, where he was buried. Still haven't returned home. But the Florentines are now doing everything possible to tell museum guests as much as possible about Dante. About Dante, who was deprived of everything he had a long time ago because of dirty political games. However... he himself would not, in his wisdom, judge his fellow citizens. Neither will we.
Dante Alighieri, full name Durante degli Alighieri- Italian poet, one of the founders of the literary Italian language. Creator of "Comedy". Dante's ancestors came from the Roman family of Elisei, who participated in the founding of Florence. Dante was born on May 26, 1265 in Florence. Dante's first mentor was the then famous poet and scientist Brunetto Latini. The place where Dante studied is not known, but he gained extensive knowledge of ancient and medieval literature, the natural sciences, and was familiar with the heretical teachings of that time. In 1274, a nine-year-old boy fell in love with a girl of eight years old, the daughter of a neighbor, Beatrice Portinari, at a May festival - this is his first autobiographical memory. He had seen her before, but the impression from this meeting was renewed in him when nine years later he saw her again as a married woman and this time became interested in her. Beatrice becomes the “mistress of his thoughts” for the rest of her life. Beatrice determined the tone of his feelings, the experience of exile - his social and political views. Dante's first works date back to the 1280s, and in 1292 he wrote La Vita Nuova, which scholars have called the first autobiography in the history of world literature. The first official mention of Dante Alighieri as a public figure dates back to 1296 and 1297. In 1302 he was expelled and never saw Florence again, dying in exile. Dante Alighieri, a thinker and poet, constantly looking for a fundamental basis for everything that happened in himself and around him, it was this thoughtfulness, thirst for general principles, certainty, internal integrity, passion of the soul and boundless imagination that determined the qualities of his poetry, style, imagery and abstractness . Love for the Florentine Beatrice acquired a mysterious meaning for him; he filled every moment of his existence with it. Her idealized image occupies a significant place in Dante's poetry. Bold and graceful, sometimes deliberately rough, fantasy images form a definite, strictly calculated pattern in his Comedy. Later, Dante found himself in a whirlpool of parties, and was even an inveterate municipalist; but he had a need to understand for himself the basic principles of political activity, so he wrote his Latin treatise “On the Monarchy.” This work is a kind of apotheosis of the humanitarian emperor, next to which he would like to place an equally ideal papacy.
Dante in exile.
The years of exile were years of wandering for Dante. He started his “Feast”, which he finished: only the introduction and interpretation to the three canzones were written. The Latin treatise on popular eloquence is also not finished, ending at the 14th chapter of the second book. During the years of exile, three cants of the Divine Comedy were created gradually and under the same working conditions. Paradise was completed in Ravenna. There is very little factual information about the fate of Dante Alighieri; his trace has been lost over the years. At first, he found shelter with the ruler of Verona, Bartolomeo della Scala; The defeat in 1304 of his party, which tried by force to achieve installation in Florence, doomed him to a long wandering around Italy. Later he arrived in Bologna, and later found himself in Paris, where he spoke with honor at public debates, common in universities of that time. It was in Paris that Dante received the news that Emperor Henry VII was going to Italy. The ideal dreams of his “Monarchy” were resurrected in him with renewed vigor; he returned to Italy, wishing for her renewal and for himself the return of civil rights. His “message to the peoples and rulers of Italy” is full of these hopes and enthusiastic confidence, however, the idealistic emperor died suddenly), and in 1315, King Robert’s viceroy in Florence confirmed the decree of exile against Dante Alighieri, his sons and many others, condemning them to execution if they fell into the hands of the Florentines. From 1316-1317 he settled in Ravenna, where he was summoned to retire by the lord of the city, Guido da Polenta. The songs of Paradise were created here. In the summer of 1321, Dante, as the ambassador of the ruler of Ravenna, went to Venice to conclude peace with the Republic of St. Mark. While returning, Dante fell ill with malaria and died on the night of September 13-14, 1321. Dante was buried in Ravenna.
Having completed half my earthly life,
I found myself in a dark forest...
Even those who have not read the entire “Divine Comedy” by the famous Florentine Dante Alighieri know these lines.
I have been preparing to read this poem for twenty years. And when I read it in two days and one night, I couldn’t help but wonder: why is this a Comedy? And why Divine? Why does Hell make a much stronger impression than Heaven?
There is such a thing as a “genius loci”. Florence is famous for the fact that the poet Dante Alighieri, the writer and poet Giovanni Boccaccio, the artist Sandro Botticelli, the artists Perugino and Raphael, the traveler Amerigo Vespucci, the scientist and artist Leonardo da Vinci, the poet and philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli, the sculptor Michelangelo Buanarroti, the writer lived and worked here. Benvenuto Cellini, scientist Galileo Galilei and others.
In Florence in 1868-1869. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky lived and completed the novel “The Idiot”.
It was here that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky created “The Queen of Spades” in 1890.
Film director Andrei Tarkovsky was elected an honorary citizen of the city, as was poet Joseph Brodsky.
The sister city of Florence is our St. Petersburg.
Florence literally means “blooming”. The city was founded, according to some sources, in 59 BC for Roman veteran soldiers almost by Julius Caesar himself.
Nowadays there are practically no large enterprises in Florence; it is a center for craft arts and an open-air museum.
Florence is the capital of the Italian Renaissance. Thanks to the abundance of museums, it is also called “Athens of Italy”.
It is with Florence that such a psychosomatic disorder as Stendhal Syndrome is associated, when a person is in a place where a large number of art objects are concentrated and he experiences dizziness, hallucinations, and an increased heart rate.
When we arrived in Florence, a miracle happened: the rain stopped, and when we left, it started again. John the Baptist is considered the patron saint of the city.
The narrow streets between tall buildings are amazing. It seems like you are walking through a labyrinth, although the city was built according to strict Roman canons.
The streets of Florence, squares, palaces and temples are decorated with the creations of great Italian masters.
This is where the powerful Medici dynasty originated. The Medici were not only bankers, but also collectors of beautiful works of art. After the death of the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, Gaston de' Medici, in 1737, his sister Anna Maria Luisa donated the entire family collection to the city. Now everyone can admire it.
The main cathedral of Florence is Santa Maria del Fiore, built in the XIII - XIV centuries. under the leadership of Arnoldo di Cambio, is the third largest (!) building in the world. Nearby is Giotto's bell tower.
Great Florentines are buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce: Michelangelo, Nicolo Machiavelli, Galileo Galilei. It began to be built in 1294, but according to legend, it was founded by St. Francis of Assisi himself.
The historical center of Florence is Piazza della Signoria. Here you can admire a collection of sculptures, including masterpieces by Michelangelo “David”, “Perseus” by Cellini and others.
From my school days I remember a photograph of the statue of “David” in a history textbook, but I had no idea that it was so large. For the statue, a huge block of marble was delivered, which the Florentines nicknamed the “Giant”. With each decade it decreased due to the destructive effects of precipitation. After attempts by many sculptors, the completion of David was entrusted to the famously ambitious 26-year-old sculptor Michelangelo Buanarroti.
Michelangelo's struggle to extract the ideal human body from the shapeless block lasted two years. The statue was exhibited in the Piazza della Signoria in 1504 on September 8th.
Florence almost lost great works of art due to the fanaticism of the monk Girolamo Savonarola. He called for religious and moral purification, for fulfilling the commandments of Christ, for the renunciation of luxury. The townspeople, carried away by his sermons, threw paintings, sculptures, beautiful fabrics, and jewelry into the fire. But in 1498, Savonarola was hanged and his corpse was burned in Piazza della Signoria.
Another famous Florentine, Dante Alighieri, one of the founders of literary Italian, was born in 1265 and died in 1312. The world remembers him primarily as the author of the Divine Comedy.
There is very little factual information about the fate of Dante Alighieri; his trace has been lost over the years.
The famous portrait of Dante Alighieri lacks authenticity. Boccaccio depicts him as bearded instead of the legendary clean-shaven one. However, in general, his image corresponds to our traditional idea: an oblong face with an aquiline nose, large eyes, wide cheekbones and a prominent lower lip; always sad and thoughtfully focused.
Dante's early life is unknown. He recognized his initial education as insufficient.
The first impression of his childhood: how he, a nine-year-old boy, fell in love with an eight-year-old girl, the daughter of a neighbor, Beatrice Portinari, at a May festival.
The impression from this meeting was renewed in him when nine years later, he saw her again as a married woman, and this time he became interested in her. Beatrice becomes the “mistress of his thoughts” for the rest of his life, a wonderful symbol of that morally uplifting feeling that he continued to cherish in her image.
By Dante’s own admission, the impetus for the awakening of the poet in him was his reverent and noble love for the young and beautiful Beatrice.
Love for Beatrice acquired a mysterious meaning for him; he filled her every moment of existence.
When Beatrice died suddenly in 1290, the poet was inconsolable. In 1295, he wrote an autobiographical confession, “New Life” (“Vita nuova”), which became a poetic document of his love.
Dante Alighieri married Gemma Donati in 1298. It was one of those business marriages, marriages of political convenience, which were then accepted.
At that time, two political parties were at enmity in Florence - Cerchi and Donati. Dante Alighieri's family sided with the Cerchi party. When Dante and his party were expelled from Florence in 1302, Gemma remained in the city with his children, preserving the remains of her father's property.
In recent years, Dante lived in Ravenna, and during the long years of exile he never thought of calling his wife to him. He composed his “Divine Comedy” in glorification of Beatrice, but Gemma is not mentioned a word in it.
Dante Alighieri was a strictly religious man. Love seemed to him something sacred, mysterious, in which carnal motives disappeared to the desire to see Beatrice.
“For this I work as hard as I can,” she knows; and if the Lord prolongs my life, I hope to say about her what has not yet been said about any woman, and then may God vouchsafe me to see the glorious one who now beholds the face of the Blessed One from the ages.”
Beatrice becomes for Dante “the young sister of the angels”; this is God's angel, they said about her when she walked, crowned with modesty; they are waiting for her in heaven.
Every meeting with Beatrice, her smile, refusal of greetings - everything takes on serious significance, which the poet thinks about as a secret that has happened to him; and not over him alone, for Beatrice is generally love, lofty, uplifting.
Love for Dante “is the spiritual unity of the soul with the beloved object; rational love, characteristic only of man (as opposed to other related affects); it is the pursuit of truth and virtue.”
However, for most of his contemporaries, Dante was simply an amorous poet, who dressed ordinary earthly passion with its delights and downfalls in mystical colors.
Dante cheated on the deceased Beatrice only once with a living woman (!), but he felt it as a heavy reproach, as a shame.
Pride and love are passions that Dante himself recognizes in himself, from which he is cleansed, ascending along the ledges of Purgatory to Beatrice.
With Beatrice, Dante rises through nine concentric celestial spheres (according to the structure of the sky in Ptolemaic-Aristotelian cosmology), where the souls of the righteous live, to the tenth - the Empyrean, the abode of the Lord.
In Dante's work, Beatrice gradually grows from a simple girl to a symbolic image of spiritual love and mystical connection, active grace, the "Madonna of Philosophy", from the image of Virgil to the analogy with Christ, and finally, the Angel Beatrice meets Dante in Paradise after climbing the mountain Purgatory.
How can an innocent girl help an artist in creating a brilliant work of art? – To be his genius, his muse!
There are many examples of this in art. The most striking is Fornarina, who became the model for Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna.”
The girl herself does not know what the artist wants from her, what he is looking for in her.
And let it be empty, and there is nothing attractive in it. But the artist’s imagination makes her an angel - the muse he needs!
She may not understand this attraction to her. After all, inspiration is not in her, not in the muse, but in the artist himself - in the creator - it is he who spiritualizes and deifies her.
A man in love sees an angel in a woman. For him she is Eurydice, for whom he can, like Orpheus, descend to Hell.
A man needs a feat! A feat in the name of love is desirable. And a woman can show such a feat in which he will become a real man!
And even though God is not in a woman, the power of love addressed to her makes a man like God. So without love for a woman, a man is unlikely to be able to feel God!
In Andrei Tarkovsky's film Nostalgia, the main character explains to a woman trying to seduce him: “Do you know the classic love stories? No kissing! Well, nothing at all. Pureest love! That's why she's great. Unexpressed feelings are never forgotten."
A poet needs a muse! And the more fantastic it is, the better for inspiration!
An artist cannot live without a muse. It is unlikely that the novel “The Master and Margarita” would have arisen without Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, who became Mikhail Bulgakov’s muse and his last wife.
The girl herself is innocent. There is nothing in it, and there is everything that our imagination is ready to create.
Perhaps these dreams of an ideal are a kind of air cushion, a kind of support that does not allow reality to crush the fragile human consciousness.
Love is something impossible!
And Dante’s impossible love, love for the impossible, for the unattainable!
This is angelic love - love for an angel! - without the desire to possess.
The need for a woman was the desire to touch an angel!
Beatrice is not just a beloved, but the Eternal Femininity of God.
Dante needed Beatrice so that he could go down to Hell for her!
Dante descends to Hell not even for her, but for his own essence, not to return Beatrice - this is impossible! – and TO UNDERSTAND YOURSELF!
But Dante is only following the ancient tradition, or is this a deeply personal need to return love or return to love?..
Love is an appeal to the spiritual hypostasis of a person.
Without love, nothing worthwhile can be created.
Love gives wings!
The main theme of the “Divine Comedy” can be called justice in this life and in the afterlife, as well as the means to restore it, given, by God’s providence, into the hands of man himself.
The purpose of the poem is to “bring people out of their distressed state to a state of bliss.”
The epithet “Divine” was given to this work by Boccaccio, and it first appeared in an edition published in 1555 in Venice.
The Divine Comedy is often called a work of genius, and its author a genius.
But I am closer to the idea of Socrates, according to which each person has his own genius, which he either listens to or does not hear.
After all, a person writes because he suffers and doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and others that he is worth something. And if he knows for sure that he is a genius, why write then?
Why did Dante call his work a comedy? – Because it has a dark beginning (Hell) and a joyful end (Paradise and contemplation of the Divine essence). In addition, it is written in a simple style in the vernacular, in contrast to the sublime style inherent, in Dante’s understanding, of tragedy.
In philology there is such a thing as “the linguistic personality of a character.” Using The Divine Comedy, you can study not only the personality of Dante himself, but also the language of his time, the worldview and mentality of his era.
The Divine Comedy is an unsurpassed example of art as imitation. Dante uses a ready-made literary plot in order to fill it with his own personal content.
Dante's ideas about the afterlife are not original. The ethical principles on which Dante's Hell is built, as well as his overall vision of the world and man, are a fusion of Christian theology and Aristotle's Ethics.
Dante created his “Divine Comedy”, following the tradition of medieval descriptions of walks into the afterlife and visions of posthumous human destinies. Afterlife visions and walks are one of the favorite subjects of antiquity and medieval legend. This is the abduction of Persephone, and the journey of Odysseus in Hell, and the descent of Orpheus into Hell for Eurydice.
Dante was a Catholic, and therefore his description of the other world is fully consistent with the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, Heaven and Hell. He borrows a lot from such a Catholic authority as Thomas Aquinas, but goes beyond what was considered known.
And although Dante did not have his own mystical experience, thanks to his poetic gift he created a convincing, harmonious concept of otherworldly existence, which is why his admirers consider the “Divine Comedy” as a true revelation.
Theology in Dante's day believed that a mystical journey to God was possible during a person's lifetime if God, by His mercy, granted him this opportunity.
Dante builds his journey through the afterlife so that it symbolically reflects the “journey” of the soul in the earthly world. Thus, the path traversed by the soul, achieving justice and then purifying grace, symbolically repeats the path of redemption traversed by humanity in the course of history.
Retribution, according to Dante, corresponds to the nature of sin or virtue inherent in a person during life. In Paradise, the souls of the righteous appear first in that sky or celestial sphere that better symbolizes the degree and nature of their merits.
Dante called himself the “singer of justice,” but he was hardly impartial, placing all his enemies and ill-wishers by name in Hell. Boccaccio recalled that Dante used to get so angry when some woman or child scolded the Ghibellines that he was ready to throw stones at them.
Accompanied by Virgil, Dante passes by people who have not left a memory on earth, on whom Divine Justice and Mercy will not look, because they were cowardly and unprincipled. (Hell, III, 51)
Climbing the Mount of Purgatory, where the seven deadly sins are atoned for on seven ledges, Dante purifies himself and, having reached the top, finds himself in earthly Paradise - in LOVE!
Like a geometer, straining all his efforts,
To measure a circle, grab with your mind
There can be no basis for what we are looking for,
This is how I was in front of the new diva:
I wanted to understand how they were combined
The face and the circle are in their fusion;
But my own wings were not enough for me;
And then a sparkle burst into my mind from the heights,
Carrying the accomplishment of all his efforts.
Here the high spirit of soaring has exhausted itself;
But passion and will were already striving for me,
As if a wheel is given a smooth ride,
Love that moves the sun and luminaries.
It is impossible to surpass Dante. But we can go further. Because there is no limit to perfection. As Virgil shows the way to Dante, so Dante shows the way to me - to Purgatory, and higher, higher, higher...!
Where are you taking me?
- Deep into the world. Open the universe within yourself.
- But can it really... maybe? After all, Space is outside, not inside?
- Take a closer look at yourself, and you will see this world inside.
-Where are you taking me?
- In dreams! After all, everything you dream about is not in vain.
A dream only reflects what is beautiful within us,
He lives from ancient times, and even with death he will not die.
The whole world is in you. You are a part, and at the same time the world.
And everything is in you. And you are everything. And at the same time you are nothing.
You are just my dream, just a thought, just a reflection of my imagination.
You are and you are not.
- But I feel it, I live. Or am I not there?
- You are me, and I am you and the world.
And you are a world like me, where there is no you and no me, but only a creative thought.
The world is a dream, an illusion, a phantom. The entire Oecumene is my home.
The home that is inside me.
- Inside?
- Take a closer look deep into yourself.
And you will see the world in worlds, protons in atoms, and cells in bodies.
Everything is harmonious, harmonious and unified, and creates a beautiful picture.
Now we are already inside you.
You see: the same sun, and electron planets, and rivers, stones, and flowers...
And it's all, it's all you.
We go into the distance, we go deep in order to return to ourselves again.
Everything is connected. The scale of Being is like floors, where the first is the last floor.
And wherever you dive, you will emerge in yourself.
You are connected to everything, you are in everything, and everything is in you.
You are a flower, a stone, and a river.
So it was, is and will always be so.
You will rush to the stars, and there you will meet yourself like a flower, a spring...
Wherever you go, you will find yourself. After all, you are in everything, I am yours everywhere.
There are worlds around you, you don’t notice them.
Everything is connected, everything is connected to everything.
And in each one there is an exit to the world that has not yet been opened...
With you we are the universe of the Universe, and the external cosmos is hidden within us.
Harmony is endless when Love creates its own worlds.”
from my true story "The Wanderer" (mystery)
The Divine Comedy is a work about the immortality of the soul.
Dante ensured his immortality with his poetic creation!
And do we need immortality?
P.S. Read and watch my posts with videos about traveling around Europe: “Venice - a fairy tale in reality”, “The Eternal City of Rome”, “Florence of the genius of Dante”, “The Mystery of the Sistine Madonna”, “Nuremberg old and new”, “Dresden May 9”, “The Curse of Pompeii”, “The Vatican and its museums”, “Milan - the capital of fashion”, “The Colosseum - Flavian Amphitheatre”, “The Leaning Tower of Pisa”, “Naples - a paradise for devils”, “San Marino - a city-state in the clouds” "
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