Dante Alighieri, whose first name was abbreviated from Durante, was the son of Alighiero of Bellincione and his first wife, Bella degli Abati. He was born in Florence, in the area of san Martino del Vescovo, between 14 May and 13 June 1265, under the Gemini constellation, as he himself recalls in Par., XXII 112-20. On 26 March 1266 he was baptized in the Baptistery of San Giovanni. Dante came from a Guelf family from the lower nobility that held no position of authority in public life but was reasonably well-off. Nothing certain is known about his childhood, except that it was spent in Florence. The early death of his mother, between 1270 and 1275, and that of his father in 1281, the emotional relevance of which is obviously impossible to reconstruct, do not appear to have had significant consequences on the economic well-being of the young Dante and his three siblings. It seems likely that he completed his early grammar studies under the guidance of a doctor puerorum, perhaps the Romano cited in a 1277 document, who held classes in Dante’s part of town. In these early years, however, two events of fundamental importance in Dante’s life took place: the first was meeting Beatrice in 1274, as narrated with inevitable literary idealizations in his Vita nuova; the second was the dowry agreement made in 1277 when he was betrothed to Gemma Donati. Their marriage took place in 1285, and was followed by the birth of three, or perhaps four children.

The house in Florence’s San Martino del Vescovo district where Dante is said to have been born.

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