Boniface quickly dismissed the other delegates and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (
November 1, 1301), Charles de Valois entered Florence with Black Guelphs, who in the next six days destroyed much of the city and killed many of their enemies. A new Black Guelph government was installed and Messer Cante dei
Gabrielli di
Gubbio was appointed
Podestà of Florence. Dante was condemned to exile for two years, and ordered to pay a large fine. The poet was still in Rome, where the Pope had "suggested" he stay, and was therefore considered an absconder. He did not pay the fine, in part because he believed he was not guilty, and in part because all his assets in Florence had been seized by the Black Guelphs. He was condemned to perpetual exile, and if he returned to Florence without paying the fine, he could be burned at the stake.
The poet took part in several attempts by the White Guelphs to regain power, but these failed due to treachery. Dante, bitter at the treatment he received from his enemies, also grew disgusted with the infighting and ineffectiveness of his erstwhile allies, and vowed to become a party of one. At this point, he began sketching the foundation for the
Divine Comedy, a work in 100
cantos, divided into three books of thirty-three cantos each, with a single introductory canto.
He went to
Verona as a guest of
Bartolomeo della Scala, then moved to
Sarzana in
Liguria. Later, he is supposed to have lived in
Lucca with Madame Gentucca, who made his stay comfortable (and was later gratefully mentioned in
Purgatorio, XXIV, 37). Some speculative sources say that he was also in
Paris between 1308 and 1310. Other sources, even less trustworthy, take him to
Oxford.
In 1310, the Holy Roman Emperor
Henry VII of
Luxembourg, marched 5,000 troops into Italy. Dante saw in him a new
Charlemagne who would restore the the office of the Holy Roman Emperor to its former glory and also re-take Florence from the Black Guelphs. He wrote to Henry and several Italian princes, demanding that they destroy the Black Guelphs. Mixing religion and private concerns, he invoked the worst anger of God against his city, suggesting several particular targets that coincided with his personal enemies. It was during this time that he wrote the first two books of the
Divine Comedy.
In Florence,
Baldo d'Aguglione pardoned most of the White Guelphs in exile and allowed them to return; however, Dante had gone too far in his violent letters to
Arrigo (Henry VII), and he was not recalled.
In 1312, Henry assaulted Florence and defeated the Black Guelphs, but there is no evidence that Dante was involved. Some say he refused to participate in the assault on his city by a foreigner; others suggest that he had become unpopular with the White Guelphs too and that any trace of his passage had carefully been removed. In 1313, Henry VII died, and with him any hope for Dante to see Florence again. He returned to Verona, where
Cangrande I della Scala allowed him to live in a certain security and, presumably, in a fair amount of prosperity. Cangrande was admitted to Dante's Paradise (
Paradiso, XVII, 76).
In 1315, Florence was forced by
Uguccione della Faggiuola (the military officer controlling the town) to grant an amnesty to people in exile, including Dante. But Florence required that as well as paying a sum of money, these exiles would do public
penance. Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile.
When Uguccione defeated Florence, Dante's death sentence was commuted to house arrest, on condition that he go to Florence to swear that he would never enter the town again. Dante refused to go. His death sentence was confirmed and extended to his sons.
Dante still hoped late in life that he might be invited back to Florence on honourable terms. For Dante, exile was nearly a form of death, stripping him of much of his identity. He addresses the pain of exile in
Paradiso, XVII (55-60), where Cacciaguida, his great-great-grandfather, warns him what to expect:
As for the hope of returning to Florence, he describes it wistfully, as if he had already accepted its impossibility, (
Paradiso, XXV, 1–9):
Of course it never happened. Prince
Guido Novello da Polenta invited him to
Ravenna in 1318, and he accepted. He finished the
Paradiso, and died in 1321 (at the age of 56) while returning to Ravenna from a diplomatic mission to Venice, perhaps of
malaria contracted there. Dante was buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore (later called San Francesco). Bernardo Bembo,
praetor of
Venice in 1483, took care of his remains by building a better tomb.
On the grave, some verses of Bernardo Canaccio, a friend of Dante, dedicated to Florence:
:
parvi Florentia mater amoris
:"Florence, mother of little love"
Eventually, Florence came to regret Dante's exile, and made repeated requests for the return of his remains. The custodians of the body at Ravenna refused to comply, at one point going so far as to conceal the bones in a false wall of the monastery. Nevertheless, in 1829, a tomb was built for him in Florence in the basilica of
Santa Croce. That
tomb has been empty ever since, with Dante's body remaining in Ravenna, far from the land he loved so dearly. The front of his tomb in Florence reads
Onorate l'altissimo poeta - which roughly translates as "Honour the most exalted poet". The phrase is a quote from the fourth canto of the
Inferno, depicting Virgil's welcome as he returns among the great ancient poets spending eternity in Limbo. The continuation of the line,
L'ombra sua torna, ch'era dipartita ("his spirit, which had left us, returns"), is poignantly absent from the empty tomb.
Recently, a recreation of Dante's face was made, showing that his features were much more ordinary than once thought.
