Who was Dante’s muse?

Dante’s muse was Beatrice Portinari, the daughter of a noble Florentine family. He dedicated most of his poetry to her, and his portrait of her in his work made her one of the most celebrated fictionalized women in literature. Dante wrote a chronicle of his relationship with her in La vita nuova (c. 1293; The New Life), in which he tells of his first sight of her when they were both nine, praises her beauty and goodness, describes his own intense reactions to her kindness (or lack of it), tells of events in both their lives, and explains the nature of his feelings for her. Beatrice married Simone de’ Bardi and died at age 24 on June 8, 1290. In La vita nuova Dante writes of the day that he was informed of her death and includes several anguished poems written after that event. In the final chapter, he vows to write nothing further of her until he writes “concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman.” The promise is fulfilled in La commedia (c. 1308–21; The Divine Comedy), in which he expresses his exalted and spiritual love for Beatrice, who is his intercessor in the Inferno (Hell), his goal in traveling through Purgatorio (Purgatory), and his guide through Paradiso (Heaven).