Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. Dante was born at Florence, and most likely educated at home where he found his love of poetry. As he grew he was caught in the politics between the Guelphs and the Ghibelines in Florence, even fighting in the battle of Campaldino in 1289. The victorious Guelphs split into two factions and Dante left Florence. Between 1308 and 1321 he wrote his Divine Comedy. Presented as three books (Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso) and written as an epic poem, this description of a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven is viewed as the greatest work of Italian literature and one of the most important works ever written. One effect was to establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it was written, as the standard form of Italian. This woodcut comes from Giovio's Elogia vivorum litris illustrium, published at Basel in 1577.