Dante Alighieri

Dante, poised between the mountain of purgatory and the city of Florence, displays the famous incipit Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita in a detail of Domenico di Michelino's painting, Florence 1465.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dante was born in 1265, between May 18th and June 17th. As an infant, Dante may have been originally christened 'Durante' in Florence's Baptistery, and the name Dante could be a shortened version of that name.
He was born into the prominent Alighieri family of Florence, with loyalties to the Guelphs, a political alliance that supported the Papacy, involved in complex opposition to the Ghibellines, who were backed by the Holy Roman Emperor.
These factions fashioned their names after the ones of opposing factions of German Imperial politics, centered around the noble families the Welfs (Guelfs or Guelphs) and Waiblingen (Ghibellines), but adapting their meaning to the Italian political arena. After the defeat of the Ghibellines by the Guelphs in 1289, the Guelphs themselves were divided into White Guelphs, who were wary of Papal influence, and Black Guelphs who continued to support the Papacy. Dante (a White Guelph) pretended that his family descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the earliest relative he can mention by name is Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), of no earlier than about 1100.
When Dante was 12, in 1277, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of Messer Manetto Donati. Contracting marriages at this early age was quite common, and involved a formal ceremony, including contracts signed before a notary.
Dante had several sons with Gemma. As often happens with famous people, many people later claimed to be Dante's offspring; however, it is likely that Jacopo, Pietro, Giovanni, Gabrielle Alighieri, and Antonia were truly his children. Antonia became a nun with the name of Sister Beatrice.
Dante wrote the Comedy in his regional dialect. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression, and simultaneously established the Tuscan dialect as the standard for Italian. In French, Italian is nicknamed la langue de Dante. Publishing in the vernacular language marked Dante as one of the first (among others such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio) to break from standards of publishing in only Latin or Greek (the languages of Church and antiquity). This break allowed more literature to be published for a wider audience - setting the stage for greater levels of literacy in the future.

Samuel Johnson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Samuel Johnson LL.D. (September 18, 1709 – December 13, 1784), often referred to simply as Dr Johnson, was one of England's greatest literary figures: a poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer and often considered the finest critic of English literature.
Between 1747 and 1755, Johnson wrote perhaps his best-known work, A Dictionary of the English Language. Although widely praised and enormously influential, Johnson did not make much money from it as he had to bear the expense of its long composition. ( I know the feeling! Ed.)
During his work on the dictionary, Johnson made many appeals for financial help in the form of subscriptions: patrons would get a copy of the first edition as soon as it was printed, in compensation for their support during its compilation. Among the patrons to whom he appealed in vain was Lord Chesterfield. After the dictionary was finally published, Chesterfield sent Johnson a large cheque. Johnson returned it with his now famous Letter to Chesterfield, in which he compares himself to a drowning man who calls for help vainly, then slowly swims to shore and crawls up on the beach, only to be offered a belated rescue by a lifeguard. ( I also know this feeling!! Ed.)
In 1762, Johnson was awarded a government pension of three hundred pounds a year, died in 1784 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.
Johnson's fame is due in part to the success of Boswell's Life of Johnson. Boswell, however, met Johnson after Johnson had already achieved a degree of fame and stability, leading Boswell's biography to emphasize the latter part of Johnson's life. Consequently, Johnson has been seen more as a gruff but lovable society figure than as the struggling and poverty-stricken writer he was for much of his life. ( Could they mean me? Ed.)

D……

Dinah, girl's name.

Dinar, middle eastern currency.

Diner, person who eats or an eating place.



Dinner, contentious meal????? Mid day for working class and evening for others.
The diner sat down to dinner in Rick`s Diner, and was waited on
by Dinah though it cost a few dinar.