Dante Alghieri
The poet Dante was born in Florence in 1265, but in the bitter
factionalism of that city was banished in 1301 on pain of death if he ever
returned. He seems to have wandered from city to city in Italy before
settling at the court of Cangrande della Scala in Verona around 1314,
where he completed the first two parts of his Divine Comedy, the
Inferno and Purgatorio, and began work on his
Paradiso, dedicating the latter to Cangrande. Thereafter, around
1318 he moved to Ravenna, under the patronage of Guido da Polenta. He died
there in 1321.
Although both the Shelleys, upon their move to Italy, became deeply
acquainted with The Divine Comedy in the original Italian, it is
probable that at this point Mary Shelley depended upon the English
translation of the Inferno by Henry Frances Cary (1805). She alludes to this work
with pointed and highly knowledgeable reference three times in
Frankenstein. For these instances, and their contexts, consult the
following passages and notes:
