the Ghibellines have captured it.

1290 Beatrice dies in June.

1292 Dante begins to study theology, first at the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, then at the Franciscan church of Santa Croce. His theological readings will have a profound influence on his works.

C.1293 Dante completes La Vita Nuova, which he had begun around 1283 to celebrate his beloved Beatrice.

1295 Dante enrolls in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali (Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries), which includes philosophers as well. Membership in a guild gives him a say in the Florentine government. Dante’s friend and mentor Brunetto Latini dies.

1300 Dante, a persuasive and eloquent speaker, is appointed to Florence’s highest office as one of the city priors. He holds this office from June 15 to August 15. Florence is once again divided into warring factions, the White and the Black Guelphs. Dante’s sympathies lie with the Whites, who favor independence from papal authority; in what he considers to be the best interests of Florence, he must concur with the priors when they send Guido Cavalcanti, a Black and his longtime friend, into exile on the Tuscan coast, where he dies of malaria. Dante travels as part of a mission to the city of San Gimignano to rally Tuscan cities against the territorial ambitions of Pope Boniface VIII.

1301 Dante goes to Rome to ask Pope Boniface VIII to help prevent the French Charles of Valois, a papist sympathizer, from entering Florence. Charles takes the city in November, and the Blacks harshly regain power.

1302 On January 27 Dante is accused of corruption and bribery, fined, and sentenced to two years in exile. When he does not reply to the charges, his home and possessions are confiscated, and on March 10 his sentence is increased; he is now banished for life and condemned to be burned alive if he ever returns to the city.

1303- Dante travels throughout central and northern Italy and af

1304 filiates himself with other Florentine exiles. He appears to have been much dissatisfied with his colleagues. Dante arrives for a stay in Verona, as a guest of Bartolomeo della Scala, son of a local ruling family.

1306—Dante works on Il Convivio (The Banquet), a philosophical trea

1308 tise on poetry influenced, in part, by the writings of Aristotle. Throughout these years he travels to Lucca (where some think he encounters his eldest son, Giovanni), Arezzo, Padua, Venice, and other cities. It is believed that Dante probably begins work on La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), turning first to the Inferno, in 1308; he will complete the larger work shortly before his death in 1321.

1309—In January Dante attends the coronation, in Milan, of Henry

1311 VII of Luxemburg as King of Lombardy. Dante views Henry as the rightful ruler of Italy and writes two impassioned letters to the Florentines, imploring them to open their gates to Henry.

1312 Dante begins a six-year stay in Verona, interrupted by frequent travels, as a guest of Cangrande della Scala, a powerful political leader. While in Verona, Dante revises the Inferno, writes and revises Purgatorio (Purgatory), and begins Paradiso (Paradise). His second son, Pietro, joins him in Verona.

1313 Henry VII dies, putting an end to Dante’s hopes of returning to Florence.

1315 Dante refuses an offer from Florence allowing him to return if he pays a reduced portion of a fine imposed upon him at the time of his exile; he calls the pardon “ridiculous and ill-advised.” Another decree is issued against Dante, as well as his sons, condemning them to beheading if they are captured. The Inferno gains recognition throughout Italy.

1319—Dante stays in Ravenna as a guest of Guido Novello da

1321 Polenta. Two of Dante’s sons, Pietro and Iacopo, his daughter, Antonia, and his wife, Gemma, join him. Antonia enters the convent of Santo Stefano degli Olivi in Ravenna, taking the name “Sister Beatrice.”

1321 Dante travels to Venice to help negotiate a peaceful resolution to a disagreement that has arisen between Ravenna and Venice. During his return to Ravenna across marshy lands, he contracts malarial fever; he dies on the night of September 13-14. He is buried “with all the honors deemed worthy of such an illustrious deceased man,” writes Giovanni Boccaccio, the author of another great fourteenth-century Italian masterpiece, the Decameron. Dante’s remains are in Ravenna’s church of San Francesco, though Florence has tried repeatedly to have them moved to the poet’s place of birth.

1337 Florence establishes the Chair of Dante, an academic position for the preservation and study of Dante’s works. This position was first held by Giovanni Boccaccio, who