The entire trilogy is called the Divine Comedy. The author is Dante Alighieri.

Dante was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265. This would be one of those meaningless, soon forgotten facts if it were not so significant for the works Dante produced. It happened to be the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the time of Dante's birth, Florence was a prosperous city-state, full of greedy merchants, dedicated scholars, and warring political factions. The two most influential families in Florence were the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Guelphs were supporters of the Pope and the Ghibellines supported the German emperor, who claimed power in Italy.

A bit of background: in the 13^th Century, Innocent III had been the most powerful pope, and Frederick II was King of Germany and Emporer of Rome. Frederick died in 1250, and by 1268 all his heirs were killed. There were two political parties: the Ghibellines who wished to maintain the power of the German Emporer in Italy, and the Guelphs, who were supported by the rising middle class and who wanted to rid Italy of foreign [Germanic] influence. The Guelphs supported the papacy in opposition to the Emporer. In 1266, the Guelphs, with whom Dante's family was associated and aided by the French, gained power. The Ghibellines were ousted from power forever.

Dante began his own political career in 1295 when the Guelphs were firmly established and many of the Ghibellines were still in exile. At that time, however, a split began in the Guelphs; the two sides became known later as the Whites and the Blacks. The Whites were members of the Cerci family, and the Blacks were members of the Donati family. The crisis came to a head in 1300 when the Whites, who were in power, decided to prosecute the Blacks who had gone to Rome to ask the Pope to intervene on their behalf. (Remember, the Guelphs had backed the Pope--he owed them a favor.) Dante was one of the six White magistrates, called "Priors," responsible for this decision. During his two-month term, Dante had to banish his brother-in-law, Corso Donati, a ringleader for the Blacks, and his first friend, Guido Cavalcanti, a ringleader for the Whites. After much bloodshed, the Blacks were banished from Florence.

In 1301, the next year, the Blacks staged a successful coup by conspiring with Pope Boniface VIII, who sent Charles of Valois to make peace between the Whites and the Blacks. Charles was admitted to Florence in November of 1301. Under a secret order from the Pope, he turned on the Whites, and admitted back the banished Blacks. The Blacks set up "purge trials," and among those accused and convicted was Dante. In 1302, charged with graft, hostility against the Pope, and a long list of other crimes, Dante—and 600 other White Guelphs—were sentenced to death by being burned alive—if they were ever caught in Florence again.

While in exile, Dante and the White Guelphs tried, unsuccessfully, to put Henry of Luxemborg on the throne to re-establish a monarchy in Italy. But Henry died in Rome in 1313, and with this death, all hope of restoration of Imperial power in Italy also died.

Consequently, Dante never returned to his home city. This exile also meant that Dante's fortunes, which were not as large as his family had once held, were confiscated. He spent the remainder of his life living at the expense and generosity of friends. He died in Ravenna in 1321.

Dante's private life is less well defined than his public affairs. He was betrothed to Gemma Donati in 1277 (remember he would have been twelve then!) whom he later married. There were three children: Jacopo, Pietro, and Antonia. (Some of the historians mention a fourth, Giovanni.) When Dante's sons were fourteen, they also had to join their father in exile. Both Jacopo and Pietro later wrote about the Divine Comedy. Antonia entered a convent and took the name Sister Beatrice.

Dante wrote the Divine Comedy while he was in exile. He finished the first part, the Inferno, in 1314 and the final cantos of the Paradiso in 1320. The title of the entire work is The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Florentine by Citizenship, Not by Morals.