Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri;. The name 'Dante' is understood to be a hypocorism of the name 'Durante', though no document known to survive from Dante's lifetime refers to him as 'Durante' (including his own writings). A document prepared for Dante's son Jacopo refers to "Durante, often called Dante". He may have been named for his maternal grandfather Durante degli Abati.}} – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, .}} was an Italian Dante himself described himself as "an humble Italian, Florentine and guiltless exile" .}} poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ) and later christened by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.

Dante chose to write in the vernacular, specifically, his own Tuscan dialect, at a time when much literature was still written in Latin, which was accessible only to educated readers, and many of his fellow Italian poets wrote in French or Provençal. His '''' (''On Eloquence in the Vernacular'') was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as ''The New Life'' (1295) and ''Divine Comedy'' helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. His work set a precedent that important Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would later follow.

Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy, and is considered to be among the country's national poets and the Western world's greatest literary icons. His depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art and literature. He influenced English writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the ''terza rima'', is attributed to him. He is described as the "father" of the Italian language, and in Italy he is often referred to as '''' ("the Supreme Poet"). Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called the ("three crowns") of Italian literature. Provided by Wikipedia