The Divine Comedy, Vol. I: Inferno
PE;-.;GUJN CLASSICS DANTE ALIGHIERIwas born in Florence in I265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He followed a normal course of studies, possibly attending university in Bologna, and when he was about twenty, he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had several children. He had first met Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice, in I274, and when she died in I290, he sought distraction by studying phi losophy and theology and by writing La Vita Nuova. During this time he became involved in the strife between the Guelfs and the Ghibel lines; he became a prominent White Guelf, and when the Black Guelfs came to power in I 302, Dante, during an absence from Florence, was condemned to exile. He took refuge first in Verona, and after wan dering from place to place--as far as Paris and even, some have said, to Oxford-he settled in Ravenna. While there he completed The Divine Comedy, which he began in about I 308. Dante died in Ravenna in IJ2!. MARK MusA is a graduate of Rutgers University (B.A., I956), the University of Florence (Fulbright, I956-58), and the Johns Hopkins University (M.A., I959; Ph.D., I96I). He is a former Guggenheim fellow and the author of a number of books and articles. Best known for his translations of the Italian classics (Dante and the poetry of the Middle Ages), he is Distinguished Professor of French and Italian at the Center for Italian Studies, Indiana University. Mr. Musa and Peter Bondanella have translated and edited Tile Portable Machiavelli, also published by Penguin Books.
[Show full text]