Author Guide · Medieval Italian Poetry
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On 10 March 1302 the city of Florence banished one of its former priors for good, and condemned him to be burned alive if he ever came back. Dante Alighieri, then about 36, never did. He spent the last nineteen years of his life as a guest of lords in Verona and Ravenna, and in that exile he wrote a poem of 100 cantos and 14,233 lines in which he walks through Hell, climbs the mountain of Purgatory and rises through the heavens, meeting the dead of his own city along the way. He wrote it in Italian rather than Latin, and called it simply the Comedy; Boccaccio added the word “divine”. Before it came a small book of love poems for Beatrice Portinari, and after the exile began, unfinished treatises on language and philosophy and a Latin argument about pope and emperor. This guide covers his seven key works, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 7 key works · 1294–1321 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Dante’s best-known work is the Divine Comedy, written in exile from about 1308 until shortly before his death in 1321, in three parts: Inferno (c. 1314), Purgatorio (c. 1315) and Paradiso (completed 1321). His other major works are the Vita Nuova (c. 1294), De vulgari eloquentia (c. 1304), the Convivio (c. 1307) and Monarchia (c. 1313). Start with Inferno, in a translation with notes; the Vita Nuova explains who Beatrice is when she appears at the end of Purgatorio.
Where to Start with Dante
If you want the poem everyone starts with
→ Inferno (1314) — Hell, circle by circle, in a translation with notes.
If you want the story of Beatrice
→ Vita Nuova (1294) — short, and the key to the end of Purgatorio.
If you want to go on after Hell
→ Purgatorio (1315).
If you want his politics
→ Monarchia (1313) — pope and emperor, argued in Latin.
7 Dante Alighieri Works, in Order
Vita Nuova
Written around 1293–1295, a few years after the death of Beatrice Portinari in 1290. Dante collects 31 of his poems about her and links them with prose that tells the story behind each one and explains how it is built: their first meeting when he was nine, her greeting, her death, and his resolve at the end to write of her as no woman had been written of before. It is in Italian, and is one of the founding books of the “sweet new style” of Florentine love poetry.
De vulgari eloquentia
A Latin treatise from the first years of exile, around 1302–1305, arguing that the everyday spoken language is nobler than Latin and can carry the highest poetry. Dante surveys the dialects of Italy, finds none good enough on its own, and looks for an “illustrious” Italian common to all of them. He planned at least four books; it breaks off partway through the second.
Convivio
Written around 1304–1307, in Italian rather than Latin so that people without a university education could share in the “banquet” of philosophy. The plan was an introduction and fourteen commentaries on his own philosophical canzoni; he finished the introduction and three of them, on topics from the order of the heavens to the nature of nobility, before abandoning it, probably for the Comedy.
Monarchia
A Latin treatise in three books arguing that humanity needs a single emperor for peace, and that the emperor’s authority comes directly from God, not through the pope: the emperor guides people to happiness in this life, the pope to eternal life. Most chronologies place it around 1312–1313, when Henry VII came to Italy to be crowned, but some scholars date it as late as 1317–1318. In 1329 a papal legate condemned it as heretical and had it burned, and it was later placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.
Inferno
In 1300, “in the middle of the journey of our life”, Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood, and the Roman poet Virgil leads him down through the nine circles of Hell, where the punishment of each sinner fits the sin. Among the dead he talks to Paolo and Francesca, the lovers in the circle of lust; to Ulysses, burning for leading his men past the limits of the world; and to Count Ugolino, starved to death with his sons. Lucifer is at the bottom, frozen in ice. The first part of the Comedy was written in exile and was in circulation by 1317; its 34 cantos are in terza rima, the interlocking three-line rhyme Dante devised for the poem.
Purgatorio
Dante and Virgil come out on a mountain island in the southern hemisphere and climb it terrace by terrace; on each, souls who will reach Heaven work off one of the seven deadly sins. It is the gentlest of the three parts, full of artists, poets and music. At the top, in the Garden of Eden, Virgil, who as a pagan cannot go further, disappears, and Beatrice arrives to take over as guide. 33 cantos.
Paradiso
With Beatrice, Dante rises through the nine heavenly spheres and meets the blessed: theologians, warriors, rulers and saints, including the philosopher Boethius among the wise. His ancestor Cacciaguida tells him of the exile still ahead of him and charges him to write what he has seen. In the last canto, guided by Bernard of Clairvaux, he sees God. Dante finished the 33 cantos in Ravenna, shortly before he died in September 1321.
In What Order to Read Dante
The three parts of the Comedy are one continuous journey and must be read in order: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. Many readers stop after Inferno, which has the most story and the most famous scenes; the poem was built to be finished, though, and much of what Hell sets up is only answered on the mountain and in Heaven.
Of the other works, only the Vita Nuova is for general readers, and it is worth reading before Purgatorio, because the Beatrice who appears at the top of the mountain is the girl from that book. The treatises are for readers who want to know how Dante thought about language, philosophy and politics.
Translation matters more than usual. Older versions include Henry Francis Cary (1805–1814) and Longfellow (1867). Among modern ones, Penguin Classics has published three: Dorothy L. Sayers (1949–1962, completed by Barbara Reynolds), Mark Musa, and Robin Kirkpatrick (2006–2007). Allen Mandelbaum (1980–1984) and Robert and Jean Hollander (2000–2007) are both free online with commentary, and Clive James (2013) turned the poem into quatrains.
A reading path
1. Inferno (c. 1314), in a translation with notes, such as Hollander or Kirkpatrick
2. Vita Nuova (c. 1294), in Mark Musa’s translation
3. Purgatorio (c. 1315)
4. Paradiso (1321)
5. Monarchia (c. 1313), in Prue Shaw’s translation, or De vulgari eloquentia, in Steven Botterill’s
Everything Else Dante Wrote
Beyond the 7 key works: 7 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poems, letters and late Latin works
5
5 books · 1283–1320
- 1283Rimehis lyric poems outside the Vita Nuova, written c. 1283–1308 and collected after his death
- 1304Epistolehis surviving Latin letters, written c. 1304–1319, among them letters to Henry VII
- 1317Letter to Cangrande della Scaladedicates Paradiso and explains how to read the Comedy; date uncertain and authorship debated
- 1320Ecloguestwo Latin pastoral poems answering the Bologna scholar Giovanni del Virgilio, c. 1319–1321
- 1320Questio de aqua et terraa lecture given in Verona on 20 January 1320 on whether water anywhere stands higher than land
Attributed to Dante
2
2 books · 1287
- 1287Il Fiore232 sonnets retelling the Roman de la Rose, late 1280s; attribution not certain
- 1287Detto d’Amorea short poem from the same manuscript tradition, late 1280s; attribution not certain
The years · 1265–1321
Quick facts about Dante Alighieri
- Known for
- The Divine Comedy, the poem of a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven that he wrote in Italian while exiled from Florence, and which did much to make the Tuscan of his city the basis of the Italian language.
- 1265
- Born in Florence
- 1290
- Death of Beatrice Portinari
- 1300
- One of the six priors of Florence
- 1302
- Banished from Florence for life
- 1314
- Inferno
- 1321
- Finishes Paradiso; dies in Ravenna
- Born
- Late May or June 1265, Florence
- Married
- Gemma Donati, to whom he was betrothed at twelve; three or four children
- Beatrice
- Beatrice Portinari, whom he said he first saw when he was nine; she died in 1290
- Public life
- Fought at Campaldino in 1289; prior of Florence for two months in 1300
- Exile
- Banished in 1302; refused the conditional amnesty of 1315; Florence rescinded the sentence in 2008
- Died
- Night of 13–14 September 1321, Ravenna, of malaria; buried there, with an empty tomb in Santa Croce, Florence
The red mark is c. 1314: Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, written in exile.
How Dante Writes: A Poem with a Plan
The Comedy is built on numbers. Each of its three parts has 33 cantos, with one opening canto making 100; Hell has nine circles, Purgatory nine levels below the Garden of Eden, and Heaven nine spheres beneath the Empyrean. The verse form Dante devised for it, terza rima, links every three-line stanza to the next by rhyme (aba, bcb, cdc), so the poem keeps moving forward the way the journey does.
He chose Italian, not Latin, for a poem about salvation, and he filled it with real, recently dead people from Florence and the rest of Italy, many of whom readers would have known: popes, politicians and neighbours placed in Hell, Purgatory or Heaven. The punishments are concrete and physical, and the people speak in their own voices, angry, evasive or tender, which is why scenes like Francesca’s or Ugolino’s read as drama rather than sermon.
Dante also explains his own work. The Vita Nuova places a prose commentary after each poem, the Convivio is a long commentary on his own canzoni, and De vulgari eloquentia sets out the theory of language behind his verse. The Comedy turns that habit into story: Dante the character keeps meeting poets, Virgil, Statius and the love poets of his own youth, and talking about how poetry should be written.
Frequently asked questions about Dante’s books
How many books has Dante Alighieri written?
Seven major works, counting the three parts of the Divine Comedy separately: the Vita Nuova, De vulgari eloquentia, the Convivio, Monarchia, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Besides these, his lyric poems (the Rime), Latin letters, two eclogues and a scientific lecture survive, and two poems, Il Fiore and the Detto d’Amore, are attributed to him.
What are Dante’s books in order?
Approximately: the Vita Nuova (c. 1294), De vulgari eloquentia (c. 1304), the Convivio (c. 1307), Monarchia (c. 1313), Inferno (c. 1314), Purgatorio (c. 1315) and Paradiso (completed 1321). All these dates are scholarly estimates, and Monarchia in particular is sometimes dated as late as 1317–1318.
Where should I start with Dante?
With Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, in a translation with notes; the poem is full of people and events from Dante’s own time that a modern reader needs explained. If you want something short first, the Vita Nuova tells the story of his love for Beatrice.
What is Dante’s most famous book?
The Divine Comedy, and within it Inferno. Dante called the poem the Comedy, because it moves from a grim beginning to a happy ending and is written in the everyday language; the word “divine” first appears in Boccaccio’s life of Dante in the 1350s, and was first printed in a title in Venice in 1555.
Which translation of the Divine Comedy should I read?
There is no single standard. Robert and Jean Hollander’s version (2000–2007) is recommended by the University of Notre Dame’s Dante course and has extensive notes; Robin Kirkpatrick’s (2006–2007) is the current Penguin Classics edition; Dorothy L. Sayers’s (1949–1962) rhymes, like the original; and Allen Mandelbaum’s (1980–1984) is free online with commentary. For the other works, Notre Dame recommends Mark Musa for the Vita Nuova, Richard Lansing for the Convivio, Steven Botterill for De vulgari eloquentia and Prue Shaw for Monarchia.
Who was Beatrice?
Beatrice Portinari, a Florentine woman Dante said he first saw when he was nine and she was eight. She died in 1290. He wrote the Vita Nuova about her, and in the Comedy she is the one who sends Virgil to rescue him and who guides him through Heaven.
Why was Dante exiled from Florence?
In 1300 he served as one of the city’s six priors, during a bitter struggle between two factions, the White and Black Guelphs. When the Blacks took power, with the support of Pope Boniface VIII, the Whites were driven out. Dante was condemned in his absence in January 1302 and sentenced to permanent exile; he refused a conditional amnesty in 1315, never returned, and died in Ravenna in 1321. In 2008 Florence’s city council rescinded the sentence.
Is the Divine Comedy controversial?
Parts of it have been. In 2012 the Italian human-rights group Gherush92 called the poem racist, Islamophobic and antisemitic, citing Muhammad’s punishment in Inferno 28 and the portrayal of Judas and of homosexuals, and asked for it to be removed from school curricula or taught with more care; Italian critics such as Giulio Ferroni rejected this and argued for reading it in its historical context. In Dante’s own century Monarchia was condemned as heretical and burned in 1329.
Where is Dante buried?
In Ravenna, next to the church of San Francesco, in a tomb whose present building dates from 1781. Florence built a monument for him in Santa Croce in 1829, but Ravenna has always refused to send his remains, so it is empty.
Footnotes
- Dante Alighieri — Wikipedia
- Divine Comedy — Wikipedia
- Dante Alighieri summary — Encyclopædia Britannica
- Life of Dante: chronology — University of Notre Dame
- Dante’s works and translations — University of Notre Dame
- Italian NGO deems Dante’s Divine Comedy offensive — Mail & Guardian, 2012
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita”
— Dante Alighieri, Inferno (c. 1314), Canto I, line 1; “Midway upon the journey of our life” in Longfellow’s translation (1867)
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