An authoritative and comprehensive intellectual biography of the author of the Divine Comedy
For all that has been written about the author of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) remains the best guide to his own life and work.
Dante's writings are therefore never far away in this authoritative and comprehensive intellectual biography, which offers a fresh account of the medieval Florentine poet's life and thought before and after his exile in 1302.
Beginning with the often violent circumstances of Dante's life, the book examines his successive works as testimony to the course of his passionate humanity.
Describing as it does a journey of the mind, the book confirms the nature of Dante's undertaking as an exploration of what he himself speaks of as ‘maturity in the flame of love.’ The result is an original synthesis of Dante's life and work.
“Took captures passionately and in meticulous detail the intellectual journeying Dante took in becoming one of the great portrait artists of the human condition. . . . This is a love letter magisterially crafted, eloquently rendered.” - Rachel Moss, Times Higher Education
