Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy in 1265, the oldest son of a prominent Florentine family. Dante studied Tuscan and Latin poetry in his youth and, in 1293, published La Vita Nuova, a book of poems on the theme of courtly love. It was followed by Convivio, a book on his philosophical beliefs. A dispute between the White and Black factions of the Guelphs in 1301 lead to Dante’s exile from Florence for life. Over the next few years he hade his home in Verona, Lucca, and, finally, Ravenna. By 1310 he had written Inferno and Purgatorio, the first two books of his Divine Comedy. He wrote the third and concluding book, Paradiso, in the years after he found sanctuary in Ravenna in 1318.