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Vita Nuova

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 1,503 ratings · 99 reviews

Vita Nuova (1292-94) is regarded as Dante's most profound creation. The thirty-one poems in this, the first of his major writings, are linked by a lyrical prose narrative celebrating and debating the subject of love. Composed upon Dante's meeting with Beatrice and the "Lord of Love," it is a love story set to the task of confirming the "new life" this meeting inspired. Wit...more

Paperback, 128 pages

Published June 10th 1999 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1295)

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Jun 28, 2010 David added it

It doesn’t much matter what the reality is when you are holding a dialogue in your mind with another part of your mind that has its roots in something that was in fact once real and refuses to depart. In the final analysis one experiences only oneself, and our life is no dream but it ought to become one and perhaps will. A part of us functions in the phantasmagoria which we call the everyday world, but another part holds on to memories and ideals which it instinctively knows are infinitely more...more It doesn’t much matter what the reality is when you are holding a dialogue in your mind with another part of your mind that has its roots in something that was in fact once real and refuses to depart. In the final analysis one experiences only oneself, and our life is no dream but it ought to become one and perhaps will. A part of us functions in the phantasmagoria which we call the everyday world, but another part holds on to memories and ideals which it instinctively knows are infinitely more enduring than these shadows that pass away from moment to moment. If it’s true that physically we are what we eat, it is even truer that spiritually we are what we once longed for and continue to long for. Yearnings from maybe the distant past that never left us, that continue to be the guiding force in our lives, though we don’t know why, and that refract all of our thoughts down the years. Unresolved issues that have embedded themselves into our psyches like black holes into the fabric of the universe, altering the courses of stars, sucking them in. Dante embodies this sentiment. His brief glimpse of the lovely young Beatrice in a street one day in mediaeval Florence set his mind alight and never left him even in old age. It wasn’t rational, but then what is? Nothing is rational. But it was right. It was absolutely good, and right. It was something that God approved of. Dante lost Beatrice, never even had her, but his memory of her remained the single most important influence on his life and art, and I believe that these glimpses of eternity are the only real blessings we have any right to hope for. They are something solid, worthwhile, good, and pure and abiding, like anchors, like rocks protruding through quicksand or through an avalanche. I could go on forever, but I’m starting to bore myself... We are what we yearn for. Isolating that signal is our main task in life, I think. For some it is faint or non-existent, whilst for others like Dante it is deafening(less)

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Jan 12, 2011 Rick Davis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, poetry

True love is theological. This is the conclusion one reaches while reading this early work of the writer of the Divine Comedy. Dante Alighieri wrote La Vita Nuova at the age of twenty-six, shortly after the death of his beloved Beatrice.

On the surface this book is simply a collection of love poetry, displaying all the conventions of courtly love. Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Boy is too overcome with a sense of his own unworthiness to ever speak to girl. Girl dies. The end. However, below the...more True love is theological. This is the conclusion one reaches while reading this early work of the writer of the Divine Comedy. Dante Alighieri wrote La Vita Nuova at the age of twenty-six, shortly after the death of his beloved Beatrice.

On the surface this book is simply a collection of love poetry, displaying all the conventions of courtly love. Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Boy is too overcome with a sense of his own unworthiness to ever speak to girl. Girl dies. The end. However, below the surface, this book is a profound reflection on the nature of love and of how human love can lead us to Divine Love. Indeed, Dante becomes a servant of Divine Love throughout the book as he meditates on Beatrice and mourns for Beatrice. In the quality of perfection which she possesses, a quality that is actually a result of Dante’s love for her, Dante sees an image of salvation itself and gives himself wholeheartedly to it. When, in one poem, Dante writes that the inhabitants of heaven plead for God to call Beatrice to join them, God responds:

My well-beloved, suffer that in peace
Your hope remain, while so My pleasure is,
There where one dwells who dreads the loss of her;
And who in Hell unto the doom’d shall say,
‘I have look’d on that for which God’s chosen pray.’

The Church at the time clearly had some problems with this imagery, and tried to censor Dante’s book by removing from it all the theological language. Gone were the references to salvation and benediction from Beatrice. Gone were the overtones of Dante’s encounter with Beatrice and her friend Joan, wherein Dante saw Joan as John the Baptist, the forerunner, and Beatrice as the Mother of Love. Either Dante did not experience these things, in which case he was an over-amorous young man writing blasphemies, or he did experience an unusual mystical vision which should not be tainted by connection with a mere human. However, Charles Williams, scholar and friend of C. S. Lewis, maintains that Dante’s experience was real and not at all unusual. It was the experience of love that all young men encounter when they meet that one girl for the first time. It is the experience of courtship, the thrill of passion, the agony of waiting to hear from the beloved again. Dante truly saw that human love is an image of Divine Love, and that through faithfulness in love, we may progress to faithfulness to Love. This is all fleshed out more fully in the Divine Comedy, where the love of Beatrice very literally leads Dante to heaven.

For those interested in Dante or in the Divine Comedy, I wholeheartedly recommend a study of La Vita Nuova.

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May 21, 2011 Therese rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a great little historical relic that lets you get to know both Emerson and Dante at the same time. Very detailed scholarly notes in the back if you're into translation. From the preface: "At a time when very few Americans knew Italian and were even slightly acquainted with, or had even heard of the Vita Nuova, Emerson read it with understanding, perceiving its inner aspects, its symbolism, and its revelation of Dante as a man full of humanity, who wrote from his heart, from first-hand ex...more

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Sep 24, 2007 Luke rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: foreign

Dante's autobiography, it mostly treats his interactions with, and feelings for, Beatrice. Dante's shyness comes across to the reader and he finishes the work by laying the footings for his Commedia Divina. I could not find the particular edition which I read, so I cannot comment on this particular translation; the book I read was in Italian with many of his poems being written in Latin. MY favorite line is from chapter 14: Dante and his friends see some young ladies and are going over to them f...more

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Jun 30, 2009 Gertrude & Victoria rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: italian-library

New Life by Dante Alighieri is one of the most elegant short works of poetry and prose in Western literature. This book is around eighty pages, but it is one that inspires the spirit eternally. This work precedes Dante's timeless masterpiece Divine Comedy by over ten years, and if you want a glimpse into that work, but don't have the time to read that lengthy collection now, this work will completely satisfy your needs. It is the perfect starting point into the beautiful world of classical Itali...more

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Jan 16, 2009 Rodney rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

It’s hard not to read the Vita Nuova in the light of the Divine Comedy, to which it’ll always be adjunct. But the book—Dante’s first—has a value all its own as one of the strangest and most ambitious literary debuts of all time. Not content to collect his early poems, Dante sets out to instruct us in how to read them, creating in the process the intricate relationship between poet, reader, and the writing that makes his work one of the most powerful anti-literary bodies of literature ever writte...more

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May 09, 2013 Rachellegarcia224809 rated it 4 of 5 stars

To me this story is one of a kind. Dante has written hundreds of book so it’s unsure where this one places, but it is one of his greatest pieces of work. This book has stories that can relate to your average love, but for the most part it is the most unique love story I have ever encountered. Dante’s work usually involves a mixture of religion and passion which makes his stories so unique.
This story is about a man’s secret love for what he perceives to be the most gracious lady he had ever seen...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Kathleen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, poetry, read-in-2011

Among the melodrama and general poetic air of Dante's love affair for--and I do mean for rather than with--Beatrice, there is real feeling. He loved her. Her death hit him hard. He felt guilty for getting over her. Among the canzones and sonnets, deep in the dissection of the number nine and how it signified in the life and death of his love, Dante shows us deep humanity.

He really was an excellent poet. Something I think that gets overlooked when discussing his religion.

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Jul 14, 2007 Andrew added it · review of another edition

This edition of Vita Nuova gets either 2 stars or 5, depending on what you're reading it for. For anyone who has a decent grasp of Italian and wants to read the original with a facing, literal translation, this is the one to read. I looked long and hard for a dual language book of this, and this is the one I found. Don't get it for the translation alone, though. There are better translations out there if you're not looking to read the original language simultaneously.

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Jan 18, 2013 Alta added it · review of another edition

Ho letto La Vita Nuova con un sentimento di piacer intellettuale miscolato di divertimento. Piacere perché leggendo Dante vediamo che anche oggi abbiamo la stessa sensibilità; divertimento perché la ripetizione del numero nove e la fissazione di Dante con lui sono divertente. Lui aveva nove anni quando ha visto Beatrice per la prima volta. Poi, loro si sono incontrati nove anni dopo. “It was precisely the ninth hour of that day, three o’clock in the afternoon” (p. 5) Dunque: nove anni dopo, nove...more Ho letto La Vita Nuova con un sentimento di piacer intellettuale miscolato di divertimento. Piacere perché leggendo Dante vediamo che anche oggi abbiamo la stessa sensibilità; divertimento perché la ripetizione del numero nove e la fissazione di Dante con lui sono divertente. Lui aveva nove anni quando ha visto Beatrice per la prima volta. Poi, loro si sono incontrati nove anni dopo. “It was precisely the ninth hour of that day, three o’clock in the afternoon” (p. 5) Dunque: nove anni dopo, nove ore dopo l’inizio della giornata. Dopo la prima apparizione del Segnor Amore nei suoi sogni, Dante ha scritto un’ epistola dove il nome di Beatrice appare “as the ninth among the names of those ladies, as if refusing to appear under any other number” (p. 9) Un’altra volta, quando Dante ha fatto un sogno sul Segnor Amore vestito come un mendicante, l’apparizione è venuta “during the ninth hour of the day” (p. 18) Ma la più impressionante visione del poeta è quella in cui è prefigurata la morte di Beatrice. Anche questa visione è venuta “on the ninth day” della sua malattia (p. 44). C’è una visione apocalittica che mi fa pensare ad un’ immagine simile di Aurélia di Gérard de Nerval. Sono sicura che il poeta francese si è ispirato di Dante.

Il numero nove rappresenta l’Assoluto per Dante—un concetto che viene di Ptolemeus. Ptolemeus ha immaginato nove pianeti circondando la terra. Dopo il nono c’è l’Empireum—dunque nove è il numero il più prossimo da Dio. Il più perfetto numero è dieci o cento, ma come questa perfezione è quella di Dio, la perfezione di Beatrice è simbolleggiata dal numero nove. Dante spiega perché questo numero è sì importante: c’è un numero lietto alla morte di Beatrice (p. 61). Nel sistema Arabo, lei è morta “during the first hour of the ninth day of the month”; nel sistema Siriano, lei è morta “in the ninth month of the year”; nel sistema Cristiano, lei è morta in 1290, l’anno “in which the perfect number has been completed nine times in that century” (p. 62). Il numero perfetto, dieci, è stato parcorso nove volte. Per Dante, “this number was she herself—that is, by analogy” (p. 62). È chiaro che l’amore di Dante è miscolato con la mistica Cristiana rappresentata dei troubadours. E la mistica Cristiana è miscolata con elementi grechi. Quando Beatrice à nata, dice Dante, “all nine of the moving heavens were in perfect relationship to one another.” In breve, lei è un miracolo come la Santa Trinita (sembra una barzelletta, ma lui è serio).

Di punto di vista poetica mi hanno piaciuto i versi dove Dante dipinge la belezza di Beatrice (laudes membrorum). Lui usa una metafora per dipingere il colore bianco della sua pelle: “color di perle ha” (p. 35). Un’altra immagine bella è un paragone usato quando lui parla con un gruppo di donne: “just as sometimes the rain can be seen falling mingled with beautiful flakes of snow, so did I seem to hear their words issuing forth mingled with sighs” (p. 31). Questo tipo di paragone è molto moderno. Questa scena è interessante anche per un’altra ragione. Le donne domandano al poeta perché amar questa donna se lui sofre tanto quando la vede. E lui dice…che la sua felicità viene delle parole che laudano la donna (“[my bliss…] in those words that praise my lady”). Lui parla delle parole che lui scrive! La sua felicità, la felicità del “Amore,” è la felicità di scrivere sul Amore! Che scrittore perverso!

[NB: this was written for a class](less)

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Oct 07, 2012 Ivana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Renaissance is one of my favourite art periods, so I'm not surprised I enjoyed this book. I got pretty much what I expected. A quick read, relatively short( part prose, part poetry) it speaks mostly about Dante's love for Beatrice. Not the kind of romantic love most of us is used to... Dante's love is connected with spirituality and this mixing of theology with love is something I found to be quite fascinating.

I've read somewhere that Vita Nouva is essential for understanding the context of Dant...more
Renaissance is one of my favourite art periods, so I'm not surprised I enjoyed this book. I got pretty much what I expected. A quick read, relatively short( part prose, part poetry) it speaks mostly about Dante's love for Beatrice. Not the kind of romantic love most of us is used to... Dante's love is connected with spirituality and this mixing of theology with love is something I found to be quite fascinating.

I've read somewhere that Vita Nouva is essential for understanding the context of Dante's later works. I'm not sure that is true. That doesn't mean you should not read Vita Nouva. I just don't think that you wouldn't be able to understand Divina Commedia if you don't. However, it might make you understand it better. Or not. Who can tell? For me, the best part of Divina Commedia is Inferno (kind of ironic, isn't it?) If you ask me, if Dante hadn't written anything but a few the lines of Inferno, he would still achieve something great. (I so don't regret being forced to read Inferno so many times during my education.) There is no Beatrice in Inferno, so maybe that's why I don't see the immediate connection with Vita Nouva, at any rate she's more interesting in the latter version- even if we see her trough idolized eyes of a man in love. For me the book can stand on its own.

I have hard time separating the writing convention from autobiography and I have my doubts- I mean does Dante really has those visions or it is something that writers in the time of Renaissance were supposed to have, a kind of metaphor? What I do buy however is the intensity of his emotions.

To be honest, Dante's writing skill always makes me forget my suspicion that there is agenda behind some thing he writes about. For examples, isn't it convenient that all of his political enemies are in hell, isn't it convenient how he is always the good guy...and then again, I don't really care about what kind of person he really was or what precisely happen in the historical time he lived it. If I was only after the facts, I wouldn't read literature at all. Art is always the truth, even when it lies.

I've seen some comments on translation, but I feel I cannot really comment on that, I think that my knowledge of Italian is inadequate for something like that. I did read Vita Nouva in Italian, but I didn't understand it very well( maybe because the language is a bit archaic)so I also read it in English. (I'm not sure was it the same edition as this one)

What else can I say? It's a strange little book, but in a good way:). Autobiographical (but not in today's sense of the word) account of love mixed with wonderful sonnets.

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Aug 30, 2009 Nathan rated it 1 of 5 stars

If this is to be considered Dantean juvenilia, it stands as a decent, if unpolished, work. Considered on its own merits, this is awkward, bombastic and poorly written; the prosemetric is annoying, and Dante seems to be desperately trying to enamor us with his conceits. Tiresome.

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Oct 24, 2012 Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: western-canon, poetry

I have no affinity for the courtly love genre, but this is worth reading as a prelude to the Comedy. Between the weeping and the sighing there are a few glimpses of what is to come, but I'm afraid a lot of it went over my head. It deserves closer attention than what I gave it, and probably in another translation. (Not that Musa is bad, but his translation is not exactly "poetic".)

What I can say is that Beatrice is not simply Dante's love interest -- she is a vehicle to another dimension, the hol...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Francesca Lisette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, poetics, classic-literature

Exquisite. Read the poems without delay. Don't read them on the tube because your heart will stop. Read them under moonlight, branches, a cold breeze. Notice your reflection as it disappears on a tide of glass.

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Jul 12, 2012 Kimberly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"La Vita Nuova" is Dante's own collection of some of his early poetry, along with long prose sections discussing his poems. The poems are, on the surface, intense love poems to his beloved Beatrice. I have no doubt that at some point in his life, Dante must have been inspired by a Beatrice to write really intense love poetry. After a while, though, it feels like Beatrice becomes more of an idealized "type" (i.e., the perfect woman...virtuous, humble, beautiful, etc) than a real person, and thus...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Brianna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Musa's introduction prepared me well for what I was to find inside, noting that Dante's expository style "is less enjoyable in a narrative" than in a philosophical work like Convivio. It hardly seemed to be a narrative at all to me; more like an author analyzing his own poetry.

For, if any one should dress his poem in images and rhetorical coloring and then, being asked to strip his poem of such dress in order to reveal its true meaning, would not be able to do so--this would be a veritable caus

...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Manetto rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think that Reynolds's translation is better than Musa's although it is rather stiff, especially in the poems. The prose is more elegant and there is at least an attempt to render the poems as poems. Reynolds follows the rhymes schemes and uses meter--worthy goals--but often does so mechanically, with no feeling for rhythm or for subtler poetic effects of the originals.

Her notes are very skimpy. After reading both Reynolds's and Musa's editions, I felt I wanted to know much more about the Vita...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Neil White rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review is mostly based on the translation of this particular volume, which seems to me a little sub-par. I've read Dante before, and while it's possible his romantic sonnets just weren't up to snuff compared to his later masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, it just seemed the translator wasn't able to get across the mood I think Dante was was going for. I can understand why he wouldn't be inclined to submit to the shackles of rhyme and meter, but the English blank verse doesn't come close to pop...more

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Dec 01, 2010 Sparrow added it · review of another edition

Romantic love would definitely have a of dire "diagnosis" nowadays, if it still existed. Dante is about to expire, every three days, just from the DANGER of actually seeing his pure and unsullied love, let alone touching her napkin. (Literally, he almost has a heart attack when he gets within 120 feet of her. And he's quite young! Maybe 19.) There's lots of obsessive thinking in this series of 13th century essays, and no one would predict this dude would go on to write the greatest poem in histo...more

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Jan 20, 2008 Wawan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

the most important thing i learn from this book is the very person of dante. to this date, i know dante only in relation to la divina comedia. well, i don't exactly know what this holy book discuss, but from readers around me, i know that this holy book is wholly difficult to enjoy. hehehe... but in la vita nuova, the new life, i know that dante himself is actually a person who has been in love. and it's love, indeed, that has made him the dante we know today.

this book tells about dante's first...more

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Jun 05, 2007 Siria rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry, italian-fiction

This short little work is well worth reading if you want to know more about the origins of Dante's love affair with Beatrice - or, more accurately, if you want to read about the edited representation of the origins of his love which Dante presents. In many ways, this is my least favourite of Dante's works. Although to his contemporaries, Dante's inclusion of commentary upon the poems was revolutionary, to modern eyes, they appear rather trite and self-evident ("The first section of the poem appe...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

Very beautiful prose and obviously a wonderful, enduring love story. But couldn't help but feel for lovely Beatrice. The man couldn't even stand up straight in your presence. Seriously? And the screen love would have lost its charm very quickly and obviously it did. Found him a bit irritating at times. Just being honest. On the other hand certain parts were so endearing that you felt how much she meant to him and the longing he had for her and that makes it all worth what in my mind are his defi...more

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May 17, 2010 Alison rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with an unrequited love and a suspicion they might be a genius.

Yes. Beautiful. Profound. Sublime. A rare look inside the mind of the author of one of the Greatest Hits Of All Time. But I'd feel bad if I didn't extend this likely tasteless pop cultural metaphor and tell you that "La Vita Nuova" is sort of the Early Italian Renaissance version of VH1's "Storytellers." Rich with self-aggrandizement, detailed in its recounting of how one man needlessly complicated his writing and romantic life by picking surrogates to his surrogate inamorata because his actual...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Richard Barlow rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Picked up this book whilst in Florence. This is obviously an early work of Dante's it is not as accomplished as The Divine Comedy, and after a while his constant explanations of his poems become a little tiresome, but other than that it is a well written book, and you understand the depth of feeling he has for Beatrice. Additional the edition I picked up has has a forward by Louis de Bernieres which is just hilarious in it's own right.

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Sep 23, 2011 Dawne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of my Sustainable Bookshelf choices; one I expect to stay with all summer. I'm reading this for its importance to the evolution of Western European poetry and poetics, as well as to Dante's own work. I'm interested in what it reveals about his writing process and what it keeps hidden. I'm interested in learning the arcane magic of the Italian sonnet. I'm interested in the tale Dante tells of Beatrice, his construction of love, romance and grief in exile on the edge of the Italian Ren...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ho letto per la prima Divina Commedia a scuola di specializzazione, e questa Nuova Vita in un post-dottorato seminario diretto da Larry Lipking a Princeton. La sua lettura della Vita mi ha convinto: Dante rasenta qui sulla blasfemia, sostituendo la Vergine Maria con Beatrice.

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Jul 11, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

Reading poetry in translation, one always misses something. With Dante it is probably even moreso. I know that I felt like I did after reading the Divine Comedy; I feel that way now, too. Nevertheless, I enjoyed both works, not least because of the heart and living personality behind them.

A man can only love so completely from afar; any chick who heard such fawning would think you were desperate or creepy, but a reader 800 years later has no such problem. This is a beautiful little book.

One can...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Auntie Pam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, classici, lett-italiana, poesia

pensavo fossero tutti sonetti e invece mi sbagliavo, molto meglio la divina commedia. Meglio il Dante ironico che quello innamorato anche se il suo sonetto "tanto gentil e tanto onesta pare la donna mia quand'ella altrui saluta..." vale tutta l'opera.

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Feb 04, 2011 Jeff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the story of Dante and Beatrice, or at least as much as Dante is willing to give us. What's interesting about this book is that it's a rare occasion to read how the poetry that Dante writes, or any poet writes, is formulated. Dante gives the occasion of each of the poems that he has written for Beatrice. Along the way we see how Dante's love changes. We see his guilt, his joy, his sense of doom, and his grief when Beatrice dies, and we see how all of this is played out in a decade or so...more

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Jun 25, 2010 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“And I, now poor, / Lack even words, and know not what to say.” If Captain Janeway can do Italian narrative poetry, then so can I. It's also gratifying to read something by Dante other than the vaunted Inferno, because these poems about a secret love never declared deserve to be read, too. I enjoyed getting lost in the poet's story, though I was often hindered by Dante's need to explain and analyze each verse, either before or after a poem. But as a result I know more about sonnets and canzones...more

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About Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller Boccaccio and the poet Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he...more Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller Boccaccio and the poet Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagined, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, that she was his guardian angel who alternately berated and encouraged him on his search for salvation.

Politics as well as love deeply influenced Dante's literary and emotional life. Renaissance Florence was a thriving, but not a peaceful city: different opposing factions continually struggled for dominance there. The Guelfs and the Ghibellines were the two major factions, and in fact that division was important in all of Italy and other countries as well. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were political rivals for much of this time period, and in general the Guelfs were in favor of the Pope, while the Ghibellines supported Imperial power. By 1289 in the battle of Campaldino the Ghibellines largely disappeared from Florence. Peace, however, did not insue. Instead, the Guelf party divided between the Whites and the Blacks (Dante was a White Guelf). The Whites were more opposed to Papal power than the Blacks, and tended to favor the emperor, so in fact the preoccupations of the White Guelfs were much like those of the defeated Ghibellines. In this divisive atmosphere Dante rose to a position of leadership. in 1302, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission to the Pope, the Blacks in Florence seized power with the help of the French (and pro-Pope) Charles of Valois. The Blacks exiled Dante, confiscating his goods and condemning him to be burned if he should return to Florence.

Dante never returned to Florence. He wandered from city to city, depending on noble patrons there. Between 1302 and 1304 some attempts were made by the exiled Whites to retrieve their position in Florence, but none of these succeeded and Dante contented himself with hoping for the appearance of a new powerful Holy Roman Emperor who would unite the country and banish strife. Henry VII was elected Emperor in 1308, and indeed laid seige to Florence in 1312, but was defeated, and he died a year later, destroying Dante's hopes. Dante passed from court to court, writing passionate political and moral epistles and finishing his Divine Comedy, which contains the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He finally died in Ravenna in 1321.(less)

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Trivia About La Vita Nova

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Quotes from La Vita Nuova

“In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read, there is a heading, which says: ‘Incipit vita nova: Here begins the new life’.” — 8 people liked it

“In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica la quale dice: INCIPIT VITA NOVA” — 2 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/540422.Vita_Nuova?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1175637599l/540422.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/540422.Vita_Nuova?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri[/url]

Vita Nuova

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