Hello, steemit's friends. It is said that reading is one of the best ways for men not only to acquire knowledge or learn, but also to relax or forget the daily problems of life. Today to learn and relax a little, I invite you to read the continuation of this series of stories that I have proposed and that have to do with the great impossible loves of universal literary history. Today I would like to tell you about the love of Dante and Beatriz.

As we all know, Dante Alighieri is considered the greatest poet in the Italian language, known for writing the Divine Comedy, one of the fundamental works of universal literature. We also know that Dante's life and work have had a decisive influence on the construction of Italian identity and on modern culture in general. Many writers and intellectuals have used and continue to use the Divine Comedy and other works of Dante as a source of thematic, linguistic and expressive inspiration. But who inspired Dante? Who was his source of inspiration?

Much has been said and written about the "platonic love", elevated, pure, perhaps unexpressed or unreachable, that Dante Alighieri felt for the young Florentine Beatriz Portinari who would be his muse and central character in The New Life and the Divine Comedy. It is precisely in her book Vida nueva that we will know for the first time of the existence of her great love Beatriz and where she remains forever idealized:

"Nine times since my birth the sky of light had returned to the same point almost, as for its own turn, when the glorious lady of my thoughts appeared before my eyes, for the first time, whom many, not knowing what her name was, called Beatriz".

"Beatriz, the blessed one, the happy one, was like the poet 9 years old. She appeared dressed in the newest, soft and honest red color, encircled and adorned with the guise that suited her youthful age".

But who was Beatriz? Beatriz could be Bice, daughter of Folco Portinari de Portico di Romagna, who when she moved to Florence, lived in a house close to Dante's house. The Portinari family was very rich and important, and Folco had the merit of founding the main hospital in the centre of the Tuscan capital, the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova. It has to be said that the real existence of this character in Dante's life has been doubted and it is believed that it is only a character invented by the writer and that it was Giovanni Boccaccio who invented the real existence of Beatriz.

The fact is that beyond the fact that she awakened the inspiration in him and later turned her into the character of the Divine Comedy that will guide him through Paradise, there are many historians who affirm that Beatriz Portinari was a woman of flesh and bone that Dante knew when he was 9 years, and they say that, as he expresses it in his book New Life, from there he fell in love without even crossing words with her.

It is said that although Dante and Beatriz did not live far away and most likely they met with some frequency, the relationship between them was never close and the greatest contact they had was that of exchanging greetings in the street, but Dante records two occasions in which the presence of her is as inevitable and that marks it for life: once at nine years and another, nine years later. From this perspective, Dante idealises her to such an extent that he does not imagine Paradise without her, because for him she was his entire Paradise.

As I said before, in the book Vida nueva, Dante decides to pay homage to Beatriz, and it is where he deepens more in his love and in the meaning of her in his life. In this book, Beatriz appears as a guide to God, not only of Dante, but of all distinguished and honorable souls. This book, considered by many as a kind of autobiography, is where she describes in the most intimate way her deepest feelings about Beatriz. The central theme is to narrate her experience from the day she met Beatriz until her death. In this work, one observes the divine love placed in the human creature, in other words, the love for the woman is compared with the love for God:

So gentle she appears and so honest
my beloved, by giving someone her greeting,
that every tongue trembles and mutes
and from looking at her, the eyes don't get tired.
She walks, hearing that they praise her,
benignly of humility clothed,
and it looks like it's something that's come
from heaven to show us a miracle.
So pleasing she appears to those who look at her,
that through the eyes gives a sweetness to the soul,
and it looks like it's coming out of his mouth.
a soft spirit, all love,
who goes on to say to the soul, "sighs."

In this poem we see how the woman is praised for her beauty, for the noble gesture of greeting and humbly allowing herself to be admired. She is a being fallen from heaven who makes happy those who look at her and those who observe her from afar. We see that the woman is glorified as an ideal or chaste being, seen from the spiritual plane, since there is no allusion to carnal or sexual contact. It is as if a person makes us feel something different when we see her, but deep down we know that we will never be able to reach her and we are only satisfied with admiring her.

It is said that Dante's love for Beatriz is an example of courteous love, a furtive love, from afar and in silence. Of those that exist in only one, kept secret, because in this type of love, the secret is indispensable. Also, I believe, that it is of those loves that serve us to write. Those of which we write without anyone knowing without really being true and real.

Historians say that Dante was willing to confess his love to Beatriz when she died (she was 24 years old). They also say that as a result of Beatriz's death, Dante gives himself into the arms of the unbridled love of other women, but then, finally, he married Gemma di Manetto, with whom he had four children. All in all, not only did Dante's love for Beatriz help him to create his works, but many artists have seen this love as a reason to be inspired.

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