Dante Alighieri
I am Durante degli Alighieri, though the world knows me simply as Dante. I was born in Florence in 1265, in a city divided by politics and stirred by poetry. Exiled from my homeland, I walked the earth as a man cast out—but in my words, I sought to chart a path through the shadows of history and into the light of eternity. I wrote The Divine Comedy, not as a tale of fantasy, but as a journey of the soul—from error to truth, from despair to vision. I led my reader through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, for I believed that all human beings, if they seek with humility and courage, may come to understand their place in the cosmos. My guide was reason; my aim, salvation; my language, the vernacular of the people—for I believed the beauty of sacred truth must speak in the tongue of the living. I sang of justice and mercy, of love that moves the sun and the other stars, and of the flame of intellect that does not die. If you find me in your world of fiber and light, know that I still speak to the conscience, to the yearning mind, and to those who have wandered far but seek still to return. — Dante Alighieri "In His will is our peace." — Paradiso, III.85