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44 - Poet

30 november 2004

Petrarca

Francesco Petrarca by Andrea del Castagno
From the Cycle of Famous Men and Women. c. 1450.
Detached fresco 247 x 153 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Francesco Petrarca (1304-74) is an Italian poet and scholar. He was born into the family of an exiled Florentine notary, who settled in Arezzo in 1302. In 1312 the family moved to Avignon, and later to Bologna, where young Francesco enthusiastically studied the classics. After his father’s death Petrarch returned to Avignon (1326).
He became a churchman. It was at this period (1327) that he first met Laura (possibly Laure de Noves, married in 1325 to Hugo de Sade; she died, the mother of eleven children, in 1348). She inspired him with a passion that has become proverbial for its constancy and purity.

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44 - Poet

Dante

Portrait of Dante. c.1495. by Alessandro Botticelli
Tempera on canvas. Private collection, Geneva, Switzerland.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote over 14.000 verses describing his visionary journey through the kingdoms of Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio) and Paradise (Paradiso), Divina Commedia. The epic is divided into 100 cantos: 34 for Hell and 33 each for Purgatory and Paradise. Dante is at first guided on his journey by the classical poet Virgil, but in Paradise he is led by his muse, Beatrice. During his journey Dante meets a large number of nameless people, and also famous personalities from the past and his own age. Every one of them has received the place he deserves as a result of the offences or merits of his life.

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