Dante

Early life

Dante claimed that his family descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the earliest relative he could mention by name was his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), born no earlier than about 1100. Dante's father was Alighiero di Bellincione, a businessman and moneylender, and Dante's mother was Bella, probably a member of the Abati family, a noble Florentine family. She died when Dante was not yet ten years old. Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. It is uncertain whether he really married her, since widowers were socially limited in such matters, but she definitely bore him two children, Dante's half-brother Francesco and half-sister Tana (Gaetana).