20/02/2026
The Exile and Author Who Journeyed Through Hell – Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
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As a political exile, Dante wrote a story that would immortalise him forever - one in which he journeyed through Hell, into Purgatory, and ascended to Heaven, where his soul was saved, in part, by his beloved Beatrice.
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In writing The Divine Comedy, Dante broke convention. He chose not to write in Latin - the norm at the time - but in the Tuscan dialect spoken in his native Florence. His work would go on to shape much of our modern imagination of Hell.
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He now stands, ever watchful over Florence’s Piazza Santa Croce - an ever-present figure in the city to which he was never allowed to return.
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Dante is a monumental figure, not only in Italian culture, but in Western culture and literature as a whole.