Italian literature in the context of "Regional Italian"

The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia, pronounced [diˈviːna komˈmɛːdja]) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

The poem explores the condition of the soul following death and portrays a vision of divine justice, in which individuals receive appropriate punishment or reward based on their actions. It describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Allegorically, the poem represents the soul's journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin (Inferno), followed by the penitent Christian life (Purgatorio), which is then followed by the soul's ascent to God (Paradiso). Dante draws on medieval Catholic theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy derived from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.

Italian poetry is a category of Italian literature. Italian poetry has its origins in the thirteenth century and has heavily influenced the poetic traditions of many European languages, including that of English.

Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), known as Catherine of Siena, was an Italian mystic and pious laywoman who engaged in papal and Italian politics through extensive letter-writing and advocacy. Canonized in 1461, she is revered as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church due to her extensive theological authorship. She is also considered to have influenced Italian literature.

Born and raised in Siena, Catherine wanted from an early age to devote herself to God, against the will of her parents. She joined the "mantellates", a group of pious women, primarily widows, informally devoted to Dominican spirituality; later these types of urban pious groups would be formalized as the Third Order of the Dominicans, but not until after Catherine's death. Her influence with Pope Gregory XI played a role in his 1376 decision to leave Avignon for Rome. The Pope then sent Catherine to negotiate peace with the Florentine Republic. After Gregory XI's death (March 1378) and the conclusion of peace (July 1378), she returned to Siena. She dictated to secretaries her set of spiritual treatises, The Dialogue of Divine Providence. The Great Schism of the West led Catherine of Siena to go to Rome with the pope. She sent numerous letters to princes and cardinals to promote obedience to Pope Urban VI and to defend what she calls the "vessel of the Church". She died on 29 April 1380, exhausted by her rigorous fasting. Urban VI celebrated her funeral and burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

General Gabriele D'Annunzio, Prince of Montenevoso OMS CMG MVM (UK: /dæˈnʊntsioʊ/, US: /dɑːˈnuːn-/; Italian: [ɡabriˈɛːle danˈnuntsjo]; 12 March 1863 – 1 March 1938), sometimes written d'Annunzio as he used to sign himself, was an Italian poet, playwright, orator, journalist, aristocrat, and Royal Italian Army officer during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and in its political life from 1914 to 1924. He had the epithets il Profeta (The Prophet) and il Vate (The Poet): vate stems from the Latin vates, meaning a prophetic, divinatory, or inspirational poet.

D'Annunzio was associated with the Decadent movement in his literary works, which interplayed closely with French symbolism and British aestheticism. Such works represented a turn against the naturalism of the preceding romantics and was both sensuous and mystical. He came under the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, which would find outlets in his literary and later political contributions. His affairs with several women, including Eleonora Duse and Luisa Casati, received public attention. In his politics, which evolved many times, he associated himself with socialism and the progressivist views of the political left, responding to the illiberal and reactionary policies of Luigi Pelloux, as well as with the Historical Far Left.

Vittore Branca (9 July 1913 in Savona – 28 May 2004 in Venice) was an Italian philologist, literary critic, and academic. He was a professor emeritus of Italian literature at the University of Padua until his death in 2004, and one of the most acclaimed contemporary scholars of Italian author and poet Giovanni Boccaccio.

A man with strong religious roots, he participated in the partisan struggle during the Second World War.

Jerusalem Delivered, also known as The Liberation of Jerusalem (Italian: La Gerusalemme liberata [la dʒeruzaˈlɛmme libeˈraːta]; lit. 'The freed Jerusalem'), is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, first published in 1581, that tells a largely mythified version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to take Jerusalem. Tasso began work on the poem in the mid-1560s. Originally, it bore the title Il Goffredo. It was completed in April 1575 and that summer the poet read his work to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara and Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino. A pirate edition of 14 cantos from the poem appeared in Venice in 1580. The first complete editions of Gerusalemme liberata were published in Parma and Ferrara in 1581.

Tasso's choice of subject matter, an actual historic conflict between Christians and Muslims (albeit with fantastical elements added), had a historical grounding and created compositional implications (the narrative subject matter had a fixed endpoint and could not be endlessly spun out in multiple volumes) that are lacking in other Renaissance epics. Like other works of the period that portray conflicts between Christians and Muslims, this subject matter had a topical resonance to readers of the period when the Ottoman Empire was advancing through Eastern Europe.