Dante Alighieri (c.1265–1321) was the defining poet of medieval Italy and author of the 

Written in vernacular Tuscan rather than Latin, the poem maps Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, combining theology, politics, autobiography, and visionary fiction. 

Dante was born in Florence to a respectable family, in a fraught political climate of civic conflict – he himself fought in the cavalry at the Battle of Campaldino (1289). 

He was active in Florentine public life until his exile in 1302 redirected his energies from factional politics to the less hazardous pursuit of literature. He spent his final years in Ravenna, likely dying of malaria aged about fifty-six.