The name of the great classic of literature of all times and peoples, Dante Alighieri, is associated with many strange coincidences and hoaxes. The poet, author of the immortal "Divine Comedy", philosopher, humanist and almost the last romantic on earth, is also the founder of the Italian literary language.

We offer a glimpse into the holy of holies - the creative workshop of a genius. It's 9 little known facts about the mysterious personality of Dante Alighieri and about the 9 circles of Hell in the Divine Comedy.

1. No one knows the exact date of Dante's birth. The official record of the baptism of a certain Durante is dated May 26, 1265. The poet's parents were Florentines of modest means, but still from the last money they paid for their son's education at school and in every possible way contributed to his creative endeavors. In his youth, the boy received a wide knowledge of ancient and medieval literature, and also knew the basics of the natural sciences and was familiar with the heretical teachings of that time.

The poet's ancestors came from the Roman family of the Elisei, who participated in the founding of Florence. Dante's great-great-grandfather, Kachchagvida, even participated in the crusade of Conrad III, was knighted by them and died in battle with the Muslims. Cacchagvida was married to a lady from the Lombard family of Aldigieri da Fontana. It is believed that the name "Aldigieri" was transformed into "Alighieri".

2. Dante fell in love with his Beatrice at the age of 8. The boy was so struck by the beauty of the young woman who lived next door that he carried this feeling through his whole life. Even then, he called a married woman "the mistress of the heart."

This platonic love lasted 7 years. Beatrice died in 1290. The poet's relatives thought that he would not survive this tragedy: “The days were like nights and nights were like days. None of them passed without groans, without sighs, without abundant tears ... ”Dante found solace in philosophy. You can read about Dante's love for the beautiful Beatrice in the poet's autobiographical novel "New Life", he also dedicated his sonnets to her.

3. Despite the unbearable mental pain, Alighieri did not become a monk and did not become a recluse. It is curious that in 1301 the poet married for political reasons. His wife, Jema, belonged to the Donati clan, which was at enmity with the Cherki party, whose supporters were the Alighieri family. It is known that the young family even got three children.

Dante Alighieri begins to show himself in the public arena. He was elected to the city council, and he openly opposed the Pope, for which he later paid the price ...

4. In 1302, Dante was expelled from his native city, having falsified a bribery case against him, and also imputed him to participate in anti-state activities. His wife and children remained in Florence. The poet's property was arrested and a very impressive fine of five thousand florins was imposed on him, and then an even more cruel verdict was issued - "burning by fire to death."

5. It was during the exile that Dante wrote his Comedy, which Giovanni Boccaccio would later dub "divine." It was this epithet that later became fatal for the Comedy.

The poet believed in an afterlife and wanted to help people, intimidated by medieval scholasticism, cope with the fear of death.

6. The death of Alighieri, like all life, is shrouded in mysticism. Dante went to Venice as the ambassador of the ruler of Ravenna to conclude peace with the Republic of St. Mark. On the way back, the poet fell ill with malaria and died on the night of September 13-14, 1321. They buried him with full honors in the church of San Francesco.

And here the most interesting begins ... In 1322, the brilliant Dante made a return journey from the afterlife to ours. After the death of the poet, his family did not have a penny left, and his relatives hoped to get at least some money for the Divine Comedy. However, the sons could not find their father's manuscript in any way, since Dante, being in eternal exile, hid it in a safe hiding place.

Here are the words of the eldest son Jacopo Alighieri: “Exactly eight months after the death of his father, at the end of the night, he himself appeared to me in snow-white clothes. Then I asked him where the songs that we have been searching in vain for so long are hidden. And he took me by the hand, led me into the upper room and pointed to the wall: “Here you will find what you are looking for!”. Waking up, Jacopo rushed to the wall and discovered a secret niche where the manuscript of the Comedy lay.

7. Supporters of the Pope could not forgive Dante for his anti-clerical statements, and already after the death of the poet, in 1329, Cardinal Bernardo del Poggetto demanded that the monks betray Alighieri's body to public burning. Fortunately, the ashes of the poet were never touched.

8. Two centuries later, it was decided to rebury the remains of the poet in Florence, but the coffin was ... empty. It is assumed that prudent Franciscan monks secretly buried the genius elsewhere. In a word, the reburial of Dante had to be postponed. Pope Leo X was given two versions of what happened: the remains of the poet were stolen by unknown people or ... Dante himself, like Christ, resurrected and took his ashes. Rumor has it that the Pope even believed in the second version.

9. But the miracles did not end there ... To celebrate the 600th anniversary of the birth of a genius, the church of San Francesco in Ravenna was restored. In the spring of 1865, builders broke through one of the walls and found a wooden box with the inscription: "Dante's bones were placed here by Antonio Santi in 1677." No one had any idea who this Antonio was, everyone was only interested in one thing: was he related to the family of the famous artist Raphael (after all, he was also Santi, although he died back in 1520). The valuable find immediately became an international sensation. The remains of Dante Alighieri were moved to the Mausoleum of Dante in Ravenna, where they remain to this day.

And that is not all! The twentieth century was marked by a no less mystical discovery: in 1999, during the reconstruction of the National Library in Florence, among rare books workers found an envelope with ... Dante's ashes. It contained ashes and paper in a black frame with the seals of Ravenna, confirming: "These are the ashes of Dante Alighieri." This event finally put everyone to a standstill! The question is: if the body of the poet was not burnt, then where did the ashes come from?

After an investigation, it turned out that in the 19th century, burning did take place, however, not the body of the poet, but the carpet on which his coffin stood. The ashes were sealed in six envelopes, which were sent from Ravenna to Florence, native city poet.

And now we bring to your attention a short guide to the circles of Hell from the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

1st circle - Limbo. Here are the souls of those who were not caught in unrighteous deeds, but died unbaptized. These are mainly philosophers and poets. Punishment: sorrow without pain.
2nd circle - Voluptuousness. Here, gusts of wind hurl the souls of those whom love pushed into the path of sin. Punishment: Storm Torment.

3rd circle - Gluttony. This is where gluttons come in. Punishment: rotting in the sun and rain under the supervision of Cerberus.

4th circle - Greed. This is where the misers and the arguing people live. Punishment: eternal dispute.

5th circle - Anger and Laziness. Sinners fall into the 5th circle for laziness and anger. Punishment: an eternal fight up to the neck in the mud.

6th circle - Heretics and false teachers. This circle is guarded by furies. Punishment: to suffer in a red-hot grave.

7th circle - Rapists and murderers. Tyrants, murderers, suicides, blasphemers and lovers of excitement fall into this place. Punishment: torment in a bloody river and a sultry desert near a burning stream, to be tormented by harpies and hounds.

8th circle - Deceivers and seducers. This is a haven for bribe takers, soothsayers, fortune tellers and hypocrites. Punishment: demons scourge sinners among foul-smelling feces. Others boil in tar, and if they stick out, the devils stick gaffs into them. Those chained in lead robes are placed on a red-hot brazier. All these souls suffer from reptiles, leprosy and lichen.

9th circle - Apostates and traitors. Here you can meet Lucifer, and Judas, and Brutus, and Cassius. Punishment: eternal suffering in an icy lake.

From this video you can learn a couple more interesting facts about Dante and his Divine Comedy.

On the wall of one of the Florentine palaces, frescoes painted by the great artist Raphael have been preserved. On one of them, he depicted a man with a sad face, tightly compressed lips and an inquisitive, distant gaze. This is the portrait of Dante Alighieri, who is called the last poet of the Middle Ages and the first poet of the Renaissance.

The poet was born and spent his childhood and youth in Florence. Then it was one of the largest and most developed cities in Italy. But life in Florence has never been calm. It was determined by the struggle between the two parties - the Ghibellines, uniting big feudal lords, and the Guelphs, who expressed the interests of the bourgeoisie.

The aristocratic Dante family was on the side of the Guelphs. As a boy, he heard stories of two opposing factions fighting for control of the city. But at the time when the future great poet was growing up, the situation in Florence was more or less calm. True, this peace did not last long.

Due to circumstances, Dante early had to take part in political life. When a split occurred in the ruling party, Dante was elected to the city government. By this time he was already a famous poet, since his first poems appeared when the author had just turned twenty years old. They were dedicated to a young woman named Beatrice, the same age as Dante and his childhood playmate, who eventually became his only lover.

It was Beatrice that the poet dedicated his first book, New Life, in which sonnets and love songs - canzones - are combined into a coherent story about bright youthful love. Thanks to this book, Alighieri Dante became one of the leading artists of the time.

But Dante's love remained unrequited. Beatrice died very young. Her death shocked the poet, and, experiencing the loss, he plunges headlong into political life. It wasn't until much later that Dante got married and had his own family. J. Boccaccio reports that the poet had seven children - six sons and a daughter.

In 1295, Dante renounces the nobility and is assigned to the shop of pharmacists. In 1300 he was elected prior, i.e. one of the rulers of Florence, after which Dante led the defense of the city from the admirers of the Pope.

Unfortunately, the supporters of the pope won, because Dante had to hastily leave for Rome, where he decided to move. But there he was quickly found and sentenced to be burned at the stake for treason. Dante managed to escape abroad, where he traveled across European countries. And, according to the author of the first biography of Dante, the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, the poet even visited Paris.

At this time, Dante writes the philosophical essay "Feast", in which he talks about the hard life of an exile, wealth and nobility, honor and valor.

After an unsuccessful attempt to return to Florence again with the help of German emperor Henry VII, Dante settled in Ravenna, where he spent the last few years of his life.

It was there that Dante created his main work, which he called a comedy, since he set himself the goal of symbolically showing the path of a person, ending with the union of the hero and his beloved. With the light hand of Giovanni Boccaccio, it began to be called the "Divine Comedy".

The hero of the poem is Dante himself, who, together with the Roman poet Virgil, first descends into hell, a deep underground funnel, then ascends the mountain of purgatory, where he meets his beloved Beatrice, and finally ascends to heaven.

Although the poet used the method of “wandering”, “walking”, traditional for his time, he turned it into an interesting story about contemporary life, about those people with whom he met and argued. In addition, Dante included in his poem a number of stories about the most famous heroes of the past - the ancient Greek giants, the cunning Odysseus.

Dante described the other world so vividly, as if he himself had really been in hell. The poet's humanistic ideas had a huge impact not only on his contemporaries, but also on many subsequent generations. Unlike many other writers and poets of his time, Dante wrote not in Latin, but in Italian- the language of his people. That is why his poem, which is written in a rather rare size - tertsina (stanzas of three lines), immediately gained nationwide popularity.

Dante Alighieri - the greatest and famous person, born in the Middle Ages. His contribution to the development of not only Italian, but also the entire world literature cannot be estimated. To date, people often search for Dante Alighieri's biography in summary. But to be interested in such a superficial interest in the life of such a great man who made a huge contribution to the development of languages ​​is not entirely correct.

Biography of Dante Alighieri

Speaking about the life and work of Dante Alighieri, it is not enough to say that he was a poet. The area of ​​his activity was very extensive and multifaceted. He was interested not only in literature, but also in politics. Today Dante Alighieri, whose biography is filled with interesting events is called a theologian.

Beginning of life

The biography of Dante Alighieri began in Florence. Family legend, which for a long time was the basis of the Alighieri family, said that Dante, like all his relatives, was a descendant of a great Roman family, which laid the foundation for the foundation of Florence itself. Everyone considered this legend true, because the grandfather of Dante's father was in the ranks of the army that participated in the Crusade under the command of the Great Conrad the Third. It was this ancestor of Dante who was knighted, and soon died tragically during the battle against the Muslims.

It was this relative of Dante, whose name was Kachchagvida, who was married to a woman who came from a very rich and noble family - Aldigieri. Over time the name known kind began to sound a little different - "Alighieri". One of the children of Cacchagvid, who later became Dante's grandfather, often endured persecution from the lands of Florence in those years when the Guelphs constantly fought battles with the peoples of the Ghibellines.

Biography Highlights

Today you can find many sources that briefly talk about the biography and work of Dante Alighieri. However, such a study of the personality of Dante will not be entirely correct. A brief biography of Dante Alighieri will not be able to convey all those seemingly unimportant biographical elements that so strongly influenced his life.

Speaking about the date of birth of Dante Alighieri, no one can say the exact date, month and year. However, it is generally accepted that the main date of birth is the time that Bocaccio named, being a friend of Dante, - May 1265. The writer Dante himself wrote about himself that he was born under the Gemini zodiac, which suggests that the time of Alighieri's birth is the end of May - the beginning of June. What is known about his baptism is that this event took place in 1266, in March, and his name at baptism sounded like Durante.

Education Dante Alighieri

Another important fact that is mentioned in all short biographies Dante Alighieri, was his education. The first teacher and mentor of the young and still unknown Dante was a popular writer, poet and at the same time a scientist - Brunetto Latini. It was he who laid the first poetic knowledge in the young head of Alighieri.

And today the fact remains unknown where Dante received his further education. Scientists studying history unanimously say that Dante Alighieri was very educated, knew a lot about the literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages, was well versed in various sciences and even studied heretical teachings. Where could Dante Alighieri get such wide knowledge? In the biography of the poet, this has become another mystery that is almost impossible to solve.

For a long time scientists from all over the world tried to find the answer to this question. Many facts indicate that Dante Alighieri could have received such extensive knowledge at the university, which was located in the city of Bologna, since it was there that he lived for some time. But, since there is no direct evidence of this theory, it remains only to assume that it is so.

The first steps in creativity and tests

Like all people, the poet had friends. His closest friend was Guido Cavalcanti, who was also a poet. It was to him that Dante devoted a huge number of works and lines of his poem "New Life".

At the same time, Dante Alighieri is known as a fairly young public and politician. In 1300 he was elected to the post of prior, but soon the poet was expelled from Florence along with his comrades. Already on his deathbed, Dante dreamed of being on native land. However, throughout his life after his exile, he was never allowed to visit the city, which the poet considered his homeland.

Years spent in exile

The expulsion of their hometown made Dante Alighieri, whose biography and books are filled with bitterness from separation from his native land, a wanderer. At the time of such large-scale persecutions in Florence, Dante was already one of the famous lyric poets. His poem "New Life" had already been written by this time, and he himself worked hard on the creation of "Feast". Changes in the poet himself were very noticeable in his further work. Exile and long wandering left an indelible imprint on Alighieri. His great work "The Feast" was supposed to be the answer to the 14 canzones already accepted in society, but it was never completed.

Development in the literary path

It was during his exile that Alighieri wrote his own famous work"Comedy", which began to be called "divine" only years later. Alighieri's friend, Boccaccio, greatly contributed to the change of name.

There are still many legends about Dante's Divine Comedy. Boccaccio himself claimed that all three canticles were written in different cities. The last part, "Paradise", was written in Ravenna. It was Boccaccio who said that after the poet died, his children for a very long time could not find the last thirteen songs that were written by the hand of the great Dante Alighieri. This part of the "Comedy" was discovered only after one of the sons of Alighieri dreamed of the poet himself, who told where the manuscripts were. Such a beautiful legend is actually not refuted by scientists today, because there are a lot of oddities and mysteries around the personality of this creator.

The personal life of the poet

In the personal life of Dante Alighieri, everything was far from ideal. His first and last love was the Florentine girl Beatrice Portinari. Having met his love back in Florence, as a child, he did not understand his feelings for her. Meeting Beatrice nine years later, when she was already married, Dante realized how much he loved her. She became for him the love of his life, inspiration and hope for a better future. The poet was shy all his life. During his life, he spoke only twice with his beloved, but this did not become an obstacle for him in love for her. Beatrice did not understand, did not know about the feelings of the poet, she believed that he was simply arrogant, therefore he did not talk to her. This was precisely the reason that Portinari once felt a strong resentment towards Alighieri and soon stopped talking to him at all.

For the poet, this was a strong blow, because it was under the influence of the very love that he felt for Beatrice that he wrote most of his works. Dante Alighieri's poem "New Life" was created under the influence of Portinari's words of greeting, which the poet regarded as a successful attempt to attract the attention of his beloved. And Alighieri completely devoted his “Divine Comedy” to his only and unrequited love for Beatrice.

tragic loss

Alighieri's life changed a lot with the death of his beloved. Since at the age of twenty-one Bice, as the girl was affectionately called by her relatives, was married to a rich and influential man, it remains surprising that exactly three years after her marriage, Portinari died suddenly. There are two main versions of death: the first is that Bice died during a difficult childbirth, and the second is that she was very ill, which eventually led to her death.

For Alighieri, this loss was very big. For a long time without finding his place in this world, he could no longer feel sympathy for anyone. Based on the awareness of his precarious position, a few years after the loss of the woman he loved, Dante Alighieri married a very rich lady. This marriage was created solely by calculation, and the poet himself treated his wife absolutely coldly and indifferently. Despite this, in this marriage, Alighieri had three children, two of whom eventually followed the path of their father and became seriously interested in literature.

Death of a great writer

Death overtook Dante Alighieri suddenly. In 1321, at the end of the summer, Dante went to Venice to finally make peace with the famous church of St. Mark. During his return to his native land, Alighieri suddenly fell ill with malaria, which killed him. Already in September, on the night of the 13th to the 14th, Alighieri died in Ravenna, without saying goodbye to his children.

There, in Ravenna, Alighieri was buried. The famous architect Guido da Polenta wanted to build a very beautiful and rich mausoleum for Dante Alighieri, but the authorities did not allow this, because the poet spent a huge part of his life in exile.

To date, Dante Alighieri is buried in a beautiful tomb, which was built only in 1780.

by the most interesting fact what remains is that the well-known portrait of the poet has no historical basis and reliability. This is how Bocaccio represented him.

Dan Brown in his book "Inferno" writes a lot of biographical facts about the life of Alighieri, which are really recognized as reliable.

Many scholars believe that Beatrice's beloved was invented and created by time, that such a person never existed. However, no one can explain how, in this case, Dante and Beatrice could become a symbol of great and unhappy love, standing on the same level as Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde, no one can.

The name of the genius poet of Italy Dante Alighieri is shrouded in a haze of mysticism and mystery. His " The Divine Comedy"- the pinnacle of world literature. However, there are so many fateful events in the fate of the poet that his name has been associated more than once with unique historical sensations. The poem itself about hell and heaven is not for the faint of heart, and Dante's mysteries are for readers with a strong nervous system.

The life of the greatest poet was tragic. Although his creations were recognized as great, they were not accepted by the authorities and the church. Even before the creation of the Divine Comedy, he was sentenced to exile from Florence for participating in anti-state activities (Dante at that time was in the Council of a Hundred - the city's governing body, but supported the party of the exiles), then in absentia to be burned alive. In 1311, already four years after writing "Hell", he was "forever denied an amnesty", and in 1315, a year before starting work on "Paradise", he was repeated the sentence "On the death penalty with his sons" . In a word, the life of him and his family was full of threats and wanderings around Italy.

Ordinary Italians revered him and were afraid, believing that Dante was known with evil spirits. And how else would he have created his immortal "Divine Comedy" if, supported by spirits, he himself had not looked into both heaven and hell? It must be said that the poet himself maintained his mystical reputation. Here is how another great Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio describes the meeting with Dante: “When Dante’s creations were already famous everywhere, especially that part of his comedy, which he called “Hell”, and many men and women knew the poet by appearance, he once walked down the street ... and one of the women said, lowering her voice: “Look, there comes a man who descends into hell and returns from there when he pleases, bringing news of those who are languishing there!” To which the other simply replied: “You speak the true truth, look at how his beard is curled and his face darkened from hellish flames and smoke!” Dante smiled, pleased with this opinion of himself, and walked past.

S. Botticelli. Portrait of Dante. 1495

On September 13 (according to other sources 14), 1321, Dante ended his mournful journey in Ravenna. He is believed to have died of malaria. His patron, the Duke of Ravenna, buried the poet in the church of San Francesco on the territory of the monastery. Traditional historiography describes that "the funeral was solemn," "with great honors." However, even after his death, the papal throne did not leave the poet alone. Already in 1329, the papal legate, Cardinal Bernardo del Poggetto, arrived in Ravenna and demanded that the monks betray the body of the apostate Dante to public burning, which was almost a sin by the standards of that time. The cardinal explained such an unusual demand by the fact that documents were found accusing the heretic of secret ties with the accursed order of the Templars.

How the monks and the Duke of Ravenna managed to hush up the accusation is unknown. Most likely, the duke simply paid off papal claims. But the monks took their own measures ...

Almost two centuries have passed, and Florence, which once expelled Dante, recognized the genius of the poet. The great sculptor Michelangelo himself procured from Pope Leo X the opportunity for the solemn transfer of Dante's remains to his native city. However, when the coffin arrived from Ravenna to Florence, it turned out that it was ... empty. Apparently, two centuries ago, prudent Franciscan monks took the ashes of the poet away from the wrath of the then pope and secretly buried him, presumably in the monastery of their order in Siena. However, when in 1519 an envoy from Florence arrived at the Franciscans of Siena, he did not find anything there either. In a word, the Florentine reburial of Dante had to be postponed. Pope Leo X was given two versions of what happened: the remains were stolen by unknown people or ... Dante himself appeared and took his ashes. Incredibly, the enlightened dad chose the second version! It can be seen that he also believed in the mystical nature of the poet Dante.

Centuries passed, and for the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the birth of the brilliant poet, it was decided to carry out the restoration of the Church of San Francesco in Ravenna. In the spring of 1865, builders broke through one of the walls and found a wooden box with a carved inscription: "Dante's bones were placed here by Antonio Santi in 1677." Who this Antonio is, whether he was related to the family of the painter Raphael (after all, he was also Santi, although he died back in 1520), is unknown, but the find became an international sensation. Dante's remains in the presence of representatives different countries moved to the mausoleum of Dante in Ravenna, where they still rest.

But if you think that the time has not come for sensation number two, then you are mistaken. True, we had to wait a long time - another half a century. In 1999, it was decided to carry out a small reconstruction at the National Library of Florence. The workers, moving the shelves, found among the rare books that fell to the floor, an envelope with ... the ashes of Dante. Yes, yes, in an envelope measuring 11.5 by 7 centimeters, there were ashes and paper in a black frame with the seals of Ravenna, confirming: "These are the ashes of Dante Alighieri." The head of the Italian Society Dante Francesco Mazzoni, who was immediately summoned (it is interesting that all those close to the poet turn out to be a kind of “Franciscans”) was horrified. However, when the mystical thrill passed, he tried to think logically: if there is an uncremated body, then where does the ashes come from ?! And where did the envelope come from in the library?! Incidentally, the workers crossed themselves superstitiously and swore that they had already sorted through this rack and there was no envelope there. Versions have already spread through the pages of world newspapers that the mystical Dante himself threw the envelope in order to joke or scare - here the versions diverged.

Dr. Francesco Mazzoni, of course, knew about the mystical glory of Dante, but nevertheless undertook his own investigation. And here's what he found out. In 1865, on the 600th anniversary of the poet, the coffin with the found remains was put on public display. He stood on the carpet. After the ceremony, the sculptor Enrique Pazzi carefully rolled up the carpet, thinking that particles of dust could remain on it and it would be inappropriate to throw them at random. So the carpet was burned. The ashes were sealed in six envelopes. And on each, the venerable notary Saturnino Malagola affixed seals and inscribed without hesitation: "These are the ashes of Dante Alighieri." And what is more characteristic: after the ceremony, the envelopes were sent from Ravenna to Florence - after all, Dante was from there.

After the investigation of Dr. Mazzoni, the Italians remembered that a few years ago an envelope with the same inscription was found in the building of the Florentine Senate. True, then it was considered someone's stupid joke. So now it's up to the small - to find the remaining envelopes. And no mysticism.

However, so no? .. For some reason, Pope Leo X was sure that Dante could come from the other world? Where does he get the basis for such a stunning statement?

It turns out that back in 1322, eight months after his death, the poet did something similar. Then his family grieved greatly, because their breadwinner died suddenly, before he could send the publisher the end of the Divine Comedy - 35 songs from Paradise, for which the publisher promised to pay the family a fee. The sons eagerly searched for the manuscript, because they knew that their father had finished it. But he lived in exile and in perpetual fear of arrest. Therefore, it is not surprising that he hid the manuscript in a safe hiding place.

What happened next is one of the most mysterious stories in the art world. Here is what Dante's eldest son, Jacopo Alighieri, wrote: “Exactly eight months after the death of his father, at the end of the night, he himself appeared to me in snow-white clothes ... Then I asked ... where are the songs that we have been looking for in vain for so long? And he… took me by the hand, led me into the upper room and pointed to the wall: “Here you will find what you are looking for!”

Waking up, Jacopo rushed to the wall, threw back the mat and found a secret niche where the manuscript lay. It turns out that the great Dante was still able to come from the mountain world to ours. But if he did that once, why shouldn't he come here again? Maybe that's why Pope Leo X made such a statement at the time?..

During my first visit to Ravenna, the guide Giacomo, who speaks Russian, by the way, is better than many Russians, called Dante Alighieri "Italian Pushkin."

There is salt in his words, the fact is that in many respects it was thanks to the author of the Divine Comedy that Italian became a full-fledged language, and not a set of dialects, because none other than Dante back in 1306 created treatise"On Folk Eloquence", which became the first full-fledged study of Romance languages ​​in Europe.

Henry Holiday, Dante and Beatrice

And although, of course, modern Italian schoolchildren studying Dante's journey through the circles of Hell and the steps of Purgatory in the company of the faithful guide Virgil cannot read The Divine Comedy without explanatory footnotes, Dante's literary authority in Italy is not subject to discussion. Unlike the same Nevzorov, who publicly declares that all the classics of Russian literature are useless, because they are godlessly outdated, Italians treat Dante's creations with the most sincere respect. In today's review - the main Dante places in Italy.

FLORENCE: DANTE'S HOUSE AND THE CHURCH OF SAINT MARGARITA DE CHERCHI

Finding Dante's house in Florence is as easy as shelling pears, signs with the inscriptions Casa di Dante are found in every second lane near.

Unfortunately, exclaiming: “I see the house where Lenin Dante grew up” would not be entirely correct. The fact is that this place really used to be a house belonging to the Alighieri family, where in June 1265 the future creator of the Divine Comedy was born, but time spares nothing (even the houses of great Italian poets), so from the original Casa di Dante is no longer a stone unturned today.

The modern building of the house was erected only in the first decade of the twentieth century, but both from the inside and from the outside it seems to be a reliable embodiment of the architecture of the late Middle Ages.

The exposition inside is quite modest: there is a room “like Dante’s”, there are clothes in the style of Dante (of course, unoriginal), there is a corner with minzurkas, flasks and other tools of alchemists’ labor – Alighieri was fond of this noble science.

In the photo: alchemist's tools in the house-museum of Dante

And in the house there are curious illustrations showing how Dante's contemporaries imagined heaven, purgatory and hell, looking at them is an extremely entertaining activity. Much immediately becomes clear.

In the photo: a diagram of the structure of hell in the house-museum of Dante

In the photo: the torment of sinners in hell, a painting in the house-museum of Dante

The Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi (Chiesa di Santa Margherita dei Cerchi), where Dante married his wife Gemma Donati, is another must-see place of pilgrimage for all lovers of the Italian Renaissance. True, the church itself was erected long before the Renaissance, in 1032, that is, in the midst of the dark Middle Ages.

In the photo: Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi

Dante's admirers do not like to remember that the Italian poet married his unloved wife in its stone walls, and for some reason they naively believe that in this church Dante first met the love of his life - Beatrice Portinari. This, by the way, is completely untrue, according to Dante himself, for the first time he saw his beautiful lady at the age of nine at a family reunion at her father's house.

In the photo: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painting "The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice at the Wedding Feast"

But the marriage of Beatrice with her husband really took place in the Church of St. Margaret, and Dante's beloved found eternal rest under the stone vaults of this old Florentine church: Beatrice died at a very young age even by the standards of the Renaissance, she was only 24 years old. For many years now, there has been a tradition - girls and boys leave notes with their most secret requests on the gravestone of Beatrice Portinari.

In the photo: Beatrice's tombstone with notes

An evil mockery of fate, but also the legal wife of Dante, Gemma Donati, is also buried in Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, however, the location of her grave has not been established by historians.

In the photo: the interior of the Church of St. Margaret is very modest

And the church often hosts exhibitions of children's drawings dedicated to the life of Dante. It is worth noting that sometimes the plots of the creative works of the younger generation are downright phantasmagoric, so in 2011 in the Church of St. Margaret I saw a children's painting on the theme “Dante and Pinocchio”.

In the photo: an exhibition of children's drawings in the church, in the paintings Dante sometimes even meets Pinocchio

After the troops of Charles Valois captured Florence, and power in the republic completely passed into the hands of Dante's political opponents of the "Black Guelphs", Alighieri in 1302, along with other moderate representatives of the "White Guelphs" party, was expelled from his native city. He never returned to Florence again.

VERONA. SIGNORIA SQUARE AND PODESTA PALACE

During the years of exile, Dante managed to live in Bologna, Lunigiana, Casentino and even spent a year in Paris, but the longest time the creator of the Divine Comedy stayed in Verona, where he found shelter at the podest of the city of Cana Grande I della Scala - the most powerful representative of the Scaliggers family.

Can Grande I della Scala was an enlightened ruler, during his reign in Verona, many rejected artists and poets found shelter here, so Dante was, to put it modern language, in his element, it is not for nothing that Dante dedicated the third part of the Divine Comedy to Cana Grande della Scala.

In the photo: the Scaligger castle in Verona

The Florentine exile lived in the Podesta Palace, that is, in the same palazzo as the representatives of the ruling Scaligger dynasty. Today, in the center of Piazza della Signoria, opposite the Podesta Palace, there is a monument to Dante, the creator of the Divine Comedy looks sadly from a high pedestal at the tourists posing against his background.

In the photo: a monument to Dante in Verona in front of the Podesta Palace

Another Dante place in Verona is the famous Arena di Verona. The fact is that during the Renaissance, opera divas did not perform on its stage (as today), the Scaliggers used the coliseum to carry out mass executions, often to burn heretics.

On one of public executions Dante was also present, he described the impressions of visiting this “event” in the “Divine Comedy”.

RAVENNA. DANTE'S LAST SHELTER

Dante finished the “Divine Comedy” already in Ravenna, an Italian town in the province of Emilia-Romagna, where the lord of the city, Guido da Polenta, gave refuge to the poet.

They say in last years his children came to Dante, but Dante did not invite his wife Gemma to Ravenna. The Divine Comedy was completed in the summer of 1321, and on September 14 of the same year, the greatest Italian poet died.

Dante, until the end of his days, could not completely ignore politics and in the fall of 1321 he went to Venice in order to convince the powerful Venetians not to attack Ravenna. Alas, he did not succeed, and on the way back Alighieri fell ill with malaria, which killed the poet in a few days. In Ravenna, Dante was buried with great honors, the podesta of the city of Guido da Polenta, former friend poet, personally laid a laurel wreath on the forehead of the deceased.

The tomb of Dante, which today is visited by all the guests of Ravenna, was erected on the burial site of the poet only in 1486, that is, more than a hundred years after the death of Alighieri.

A few decades after the death of the poet, the rulers of Florence suddenly realized who they had lost, and began to ask Ravenna to give them the ashes of Dante. Ravenna invariably refused all requests, however, in memory of Dante's hometown, a lamp with Florentine oil burns day and night in the poet's tomb.

In the photo: Florence - Dante's hometown

Once a year in September, in the month called "the month of Dante", the oil for the funeral lamp is brought to Ravenna from Florence, the poet's favorite, the city where he was never destined to return.

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Julia Malkova- Julia Malkova - founder of the website project. Former editor-in-chief of the elle.ru Internet project and editor-in-chief of the cosmo.ru website. I talk about traveling for my own pleasure and the pleasure of readers. If you are a representative of hotels, tourism office, but we are not familiar, you can contact me by email: [email protected]