the favor shown to him by Charles Martel when Charles
made a princely entrance into Florence. At age eighteen,
already possessed of remarkable self-confi dence, Dante
sent his fi rst poem to the most famous writers of the day,
including Guido Cavalcanti.
Early in the 1290s, Dante collected the poems, mostly
sonnets, that he had been writing over the preceding
decade and brought them out as a little book (libello)
that was to become famous: Vita nuova (The New Life).
Here he made his fi rst gesture toward a lifelong endeavor
that itself would undergo some twists and turns, praise
of the lady Beatrice. Vita nuova contains forty-two brief
chapters with commentaries on twenty-fi ve sonnets,
one ballata, and four canzoni; a fi fth canzone is left
dramatically interrupted by Beattice’s death. The prose
commentary provides the fl aming story, which does not
emerge from the poems themselves. The story is simple
enough: Dante’s fi rst sight of Beatrice when they both
are nine years old; her salutation when they are eighteen;
Dante’s subterfuges to conceal his love for her; the crisis
he experiences when Beatrice withholds her greeting;
his anguish at the thought that she is making light of
him; his determination to rise above anguish and sing
only of his lady’s virtues; his experiences that anticipate
her death (a young friend dies, Beatrice’s father dies,
and Dante has a premonitory dream); and fi nally the
death of Beatrice, Dante’s mourning, his temptation by
a sympathetic donna gentile (a young woman who tem-
porarily replaces Beatrice), Beatrice’s fi nal triumph and
apotheosis, and in the last chapter Dante’s determination
to write at some later time about her “that which has
never been written of any woman.” Beatrice thus became
one of the most famous unknowns in history.
It was in accordance with the opinion of Guido
Cavalcanti that Dante had decided to write Vita nuova
in Italian; therefore, he dedicates it to his “fi rst friend,”
whose brilliant and haughty spirit he memorializes
most adroitly in Inferno 10. A second contemporary
fi gure who infl uenced Dante was Guido Guinizzelli, the
poet most responsible for altering the prevailing local,
or “municipal,” poetry. Guido’s poems were written
in praise of his lady and of gentilezza (nobility), the
virtue that she brought out in her admirer. The concept
of love that Guido extolled was part of a refi ned and
noble sense of life; and his infl uence was responsible
for the poetic and spiritual turning point of Vita nuova.
In chapters 17–21, Dante experiences a change of heart,
and rather than write poems of anguish he determines
to write poems in praise of his own lady, especially the
canzone Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore (“Ladies
who have understanding of love”). This canzone is fol-
lowed immediately by the sonnet Amore e ‘l cor gentil
sono una cosa (“Love and the noble heart are the same
thing”), in which the fi rst line is clearly an adaptation
of Guinizzelli’s Al cor gentil ripara sempre amore (“In
every noble heart love fi nds its home”). This was the
beginning of Dante’s association with a new poetic style,
the dolce stil nuovo (“sweet new style”). He dramati-
cally explains the signifi cance of this style—the simple
means by which it transcended the narrow range of more
regional poetry—in Canto 24 of the Purgatorio.
Another signifi cant change was Dante’s more active
involvement in the political affairs of the commune.
As a philosopher, Dante was eligible to join one of the
guilds that constituted the main entry into Florentine
political life, and in 1295 he became a member of theDANTE ALIGHIERIDomenico di Michelino (1417–1491).
Dante and the Divine Comedy.
© Nicolo Orsi Battaglini/Art Resource,
New York.