Il Convivio,orThe Banquet,wasasecond
collection of poems and commentaries.
The Divine Comedy, which Dante began
about 1306 and originally named simply
The Comedy, tells the story of the author’s
imaginary voyage through Hell, Purgatory,
and Paradise. The three books of the poem
consist of more than fourteen thousand
lines, contained within one hundred can-
tos. In the first two books of the work, he
is guided by Virgil, the historical author of
the epic poem The Aeneid; on the trip
through Paradise he accompanies Beatrice,
a distant love of Dante’s youth to whom
he dedicated all of his works. The poem is
divided into three-line stanzas in a scheme
known asterza rima, in which the first
and third lines rhyme with the middle line
of the previous stanza.The Divine Comedy
is an allegory of an ordinary man’s jour-
ney through life, and his striving to escape
worldly sin and misery through reason,
represented by Virgil, and the spiritual en-
lightenment and hope offered by God.
Dante’s work established the Tuscan dia-
lect of Italian as a worthy language of po-
etry and other literary forms; the use of
everyday language in his works and those
of Giovanni Boccaccio greatly expanded
the audience for poetry and prose. Dante’s
blend of religious and secular themes in
his work also helped to bridge the medi-
eval and humanist eras of European litera-
ture.
SEEALSO: Boccaccio, Giovanni; Florence;
literature
Anguissola, Sofonisba ........................
(1532–1625)
A painter and portraitist, Sofonisba An-
guissola was born in Cremona, Italy, the
daughter of noble parents. She studied
painting in Cremona and in 1554 traveled
to Rome, where she met Michelangelo,
who agreed to critique copies she made of
his sketches. Social conventions prevented
her from rendering mythical allegories or
biblical subjects, which frequently con-
tained nude figures, or large-scale histori-
cal works. As a result she specialized in
portraits of family members and acquain-
tances in domestic settings. In 1559 she
became a court painter for Elizabeth of
Valois, the queen of Spain. At the royal
court in Madrid she painted official por-
traits that found favor with the royal fam-
ily as well as aristocratic patrons. King
Philip II of Spain rewarded her with a gen-
erous pension. In 1580 she returned to
Italy, settling in Genoa, where she set up a
private studio and became one of the city’s
most prominent artists. As the first woman
to win renown as a painter during the Re-
naissance, she inspired many younger
women to pursue similar careers.Anne of Brittany ...............................
(1477–1514)
Queen consorts of France and Duchess of
Brittany, Anne was a wealthy patroness of
Renaissance art and music who devoted
her life to keeping Brittany independent of
French control. Born in Nantes, a port city
of the Breton coast, she was the daughter
of Duke Francis II and Margaret of Foix.
Brittany had remained independent of
France even after the defeat of England by
the French at the close of the Hundred
Years’ War. Although Brittany fought the
French armies to a stalemate in 1488, by
the Treaty of Verger that concluded this
war Anne was not allowed to marry with-
out the approval of the French king. The
only surviving child of her parents, Anne
inherited her father’s title when he died in
a riding accident and left no male heirs.
In the French kingdom the Salic law
prohibited women from reigning; the ar-Anguissola, Sofonisba