Dante’s children

Dante’s marriage to Gemma produced at least three children, Pietro, Jacopo and Antonia. The first, sentenced to death along with Dante in 1315, followed his father throughout his exile right to Ravenna. After studying law at Bologna, he settled in Verona, where he practised his profession, also holding public office and meeting the intellectuals in attendance at the Scaliger court. He died in Treviso on 21 April 1364. Although he also composed a number of vernacular lyrics in which he adopts themes and styles similar to those of his father, his fame rests upon a demanding Comentum in Latin on the entire Commedia which he wrote between 1340 and 1341. Two later versions are also known in which he demonstrates his familiarity with his father’s other works, including the Convivio and even the Questio.

Jacopo also followed his father into exile, returning to Florence in 1325, and was involved in the settlement of his parents’ numerous inheritance disputes. He died prior to 1349, having written a short didactic-allegorical poem, the Dottrinale, whose last section is an outline of the Commedia. He also composed the Divisione, dedicated to Guido Novello da Polenta, a successful humorous work of 50 or 51 terzine summing up his father’s poem, and an unimportant but early (dating from around 1322) vernacular commentary on the Inferno.

Little is known about Antonia. She probably did not share her father’s exile, but remained with her mother in Florence. She is identified as the Sister Beatrice (a fairly indicative choice of name) at a convent in Ravenna, to whom Boccaccio was appointed by the Society of Orsammichele, in 1350, to present ten gold florins as symbolic compensation for damages suffered by her father.

There is some controversy over Dante’s fathering of two other children: Giovanni, cited only in the 1308 deed of a notary in Lucca, and especially Gabriello, named in Florence’s tax registers and almost certainly fathered by someone of the same name.