Divine Power
The explicitly scholastic Divine Power distinction developed out of the twelfth century theological discussion of the nature of God’s power. At issue, initially, was the desire to preserve the constancy of God’s nature and yet to preserve his freedom from
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Dante Alighieri TERESA RUPP Department of History Mount Saint Mary’s University Emmitsburg, MD USA
Abstract Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was a poet whose work was influenced both by his political experiences and by his study of philosophy. Born in Florence, he was educated in grammar and rhetoric and reports in his Convivio that he studied philosophy at the ‘‘schools of the religious,’’ probably the studia at Florence’s Franciscan and Dominican houses. Until his exile, he was an active participant in civic life, as a guild member, communal councilor, and prior. He was exiled in early 1302 after his faction, the Whites, was replaced by the Blacks (with the not-so-covert support of Boniface VIII). He never returned to Florence, dying in Ravenna in 1321. Except for the early collection of lyric poems, the Vita nuova, most of his works were composed during his exile. Convivio is an unfinished encyclopedic work on human knowledge. Monarchia argues for a single universal ruler, who should be the Roman emperor and not the pope. The Divine Comedy brings together many of these philosophical and political themes, transformed into a masterpiece of imaginative literature. Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was a poet whose work was influenced both by his political experiences and by his study of philosophy. He was born in 1265 in Florence to Alighiero Alighieri, possibly a moneylender, and Bella degli Abati. He was educated in grammar and rhetoric
and began his literary career by composing lyric poems in the dolce stil nuovo (‘‘sweet new style’’), many of them inspired by his beloved Beatrice, thought to be Beatrice Portinari, although he contracted marriage to Gemma Donati in 1277, with whom he had four children. After Beatrice’s death in 1290, Dante compiled 31 of his lyric poems into the collection La vita nuova, interspersing them with a prose commentary that narrates the transformation of his relationship with Beatrice from conventional courtly love of the earthly Beatrice to a purely intellectual love of her blessed spirit. Also in the 1290s, Dante tells us in the unfinished Convivio (Banquet) of 1304–1307, he turned for consolation to the study of philosophy ne le scuole de li religiosi e a le disputazioni de li filosofanti (‘‘in the schools of the religious and the disputations of the philosophers’’; Conv. 2.12.7.). These ‘‘schools of the religious’’ would have been the studia attached to the mendicant orders in Florence. His teacher at the Franciscan house, Santa Croce, was probably Peter Olivi, who exposed him to the Spiritual Franciscans’ criticism of church property, while the Dominican teacher at Santa Maria Novella, Remigio dei Girolami, familiarized him with Aristotelian ideas. In addition to his early poetic efforts and philosophical explorations, Dante also participated in Florentine civic life. He fought in the battle of Campaldino against Arezzo in 1289 and joined the guild of Medici e speziali (doctors and pharmacists) in 1295, making him eligible to hold political office under the recently passed (1293) Ordinances
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