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Creditable as were their essays in the new literary instrument of thought, Dante’s predecessors can be regarded as his forerunners only in so far as they had helped to create an intellectual atmosphere congenial to the special bent of his genius. The general character of this may be defined as an alliance of the chivalrous and impassioned sentiment which had come down from the troubadours with the science of Aristotle and the thought of Aquinas. Guido Cavalcanti had shown how these might be combined, and Dante followed in his steps without, perhaps, any clear consciousness of his own infinite superiority; of which, however, a well-known passage in theInferno seems to intimate that he eventually came to entertain a sufficient notion.

DANTE (DURANTE) ALIGHIERI was born at Florence in 1265, in the later part of May. The origin of his family is variously attributed to Rome, Ferrara, Parma, and Verona. The first of his ancestors whom he mentions, Cacciaguida degli Elisei, a crusader in 1147, had bestowed his wife’s surname of Alighieri upon his son, and it had continued in the family. Dante’s relatives belonged to the Guelf party, and had had their share in the turmoils which for half a century had distracted Florence no less than most other Italian cities. Of his boyhood we know nothing, except that he lost his mother at an early age, and that he profited by the instructions of the most learned of the Florentines, Brunetto Latini. He appears to have taken part in several military expeditions in his youth, and the glimpses of his personal circumstances which he allows us in theVita Nuova exhibit him as a man of means, mingling on equal terms with the wealthy and polished society of prosperous Florence.