Aim: How did Dante’s pilgrimage compare with other pilgrimages of the Middle Ages?

Homework: Read pp. 323-327 in World History, and answer question #’s 5 & 8.

Dante Alighieri was a major Italian poet of the late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. In Italy he is called il Sommo Poeta (“the Supreme Poet”) and il Poeta. He is also called “the Father of the Italian language.”

Dante’s Divine Comedy3 Part, plus the Introduction

Introduction(1 canto)

a) Hell – Inferno(33 cantos)

1. Virgil, a Roman poet, helps him tonavigate through Hell.

b) Purgatory – Purgatorio(33 cantos)

1. Beatrice, the love of his life, escortshim through purgatory into paradise.

c) Heaven – Paradiso(33 cantos)