In this book Marco Santagata offers a comprehensive interpretation of the great poet from Florence, who in recent years has achieved an unprecedented media popularity. An accomplished expert on Dante and his oeuvre, the author focuses on some of his main prose and poetry works - including "La Vita Nova", "De vulgari eloquentia", "Rime", and of course "The Divine Comedy" - and highlights their essential features, Dante's sophisticated character construction technique, the complex set of references that stems from an extraordinary effort at introducing order. This analysis allows Santagata to draw attention, above all, to Dante's ego as an author, a narrator, and a personality at the same time, who managed to elevate contingent autobiographical data to a universal level, thus bringing to light the destiny and fate underlying his life.

Marco Santagata teaches Italian Literature at the University of Pisa.