Dante in Love

A. N. Wilson

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780857895813
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

With a biographer's eye for detail and a novelist's comprehension of the creative process, A. N. Wilson paints a masterful portrait of Dante Alighieri and unlocks one of the seminal works of literature for a new generation of readers.

In Dante in Love, A. N. Wilson presents a glittering study of an artist and his world, arguing that without an understanding of medieval Florence, it is impossible to comprehend the meaning of Dante's great poem. He explains how the Italian States were at that time locked into violent feuds, mirrored in the ferocious competition between the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy. He explores Dante's preoccupations with classical mythology, numerology and the great Christian philosophers which inform every line of the Comedy. Dante in Love also lays bare the enigma of the man who never wrote about the mother of his children, yet immortalized the mysterious Beatrice, whom he barely knew.

INDEX

Aachen 318

and coronation of Henry VII 267

Adamo, Maestro (forger) 261–2

Addison, Joseph 318–19

adultery, and Courtly Love 85–6, 98

Albert of Cologne (Albert the Great) 156

Albert I of Austria, Emperor (r.1282–1308) 25, 265–6, 271

Albigensians 26, 88–96

Alcuin of York 222–3

Aldobrandeschi, Margherita (the Red Countess) 33–4

Alexander IV, Pope (r.1254–61) 346 n.17

Alfonso X of Castile 69

Alfraganus (Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani) 144

Alfred the Great, King of England (r.871–99) 222

Alighiero, Bella (mother of Dante) 51, 252

Alighiero di Bellincione (father of Dante) 43, 51–2, 56–7, 105

death 80–1, 252

and moneylending 51, 80, 116, 207, 329

Alighieri, Francesco (half-brother of Dante) 51

Alighieri, Gaetana (half-sister of Dante) 51

allegory 134

Aeneid as 254

autobiographical 12, 64, 69–70, 84–5, 217, 240, 243

and Courtly Love 88

and Il Fiore 82–4

Ambrose of Milan, St 233

Ampere, Jean-Jacques, Voyage Dantesque 261

Anagni, and Boniface VIII 30–1, 34, 187–9, 306

Angiolieri, Cecco 140

Annales Placentini Gibellini 43

Anselm of Canterbury 161, 309

Anthony of Padua, St 93

anti-Semitism157

Antonia Alighieri (daughter of Dante) 137, 294–5

Aquinas, Thomas (1225–74) Fig. 7

and Aristotelianism 155–9, 161

and ecstasy 159–62

and Five Ways 161–2

and Immaculate Conception 311

and intellect 238–9

and love 9, 12–13

nervous breakdown 157, 161, 235

and objective knowledge...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• I. Why This Book Has Been Written
• II. Rome
• III. Dante’s Florence 1260–74
• IV. Gemma Donati And Beatrice Portinari
• V. Dante’s Education
• VI. A New Constitution For Florence And The Sicilian Vespers
• VII. Late Teens – The Dream
• VIII. A Poet’s Apprenticeship
• IX. The Warrior Who Fought At Campaldino
• X. Death Of Beatrice
• XI. The Consolation Of Philosophy
• XII. The Dark Wood
• XIII. Dante And The Painted Word. Giotto At Padua
• XIV. The Common Tongue
• XV. Medieval Autobiography
• XVI. Dante In Love With A Woman In Casentino. The Origins Of The Comedy
• XVII. Crown Imperial 1310–13
• XVIII. Dante In Love Again With Beatrice
• XIX. Ravenna and Venice
• XX. In Paradisum
• Xxi. Dante’s Afterlife
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Permissions
• Index