Dante Alighieri

poet, author of the Divine Comedy

1265 – 1321 · 56 years · Florence · Europe

Florentine poet whose Divine Comedy, a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, founded the Italian literary language.

Portrait: Sandro Botticelli · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Philip IV the Fair — king who destroyed the Knights Templar, 3 years younger
Edward I Longshanks — conqueror of Wales, called the Hammer of the Scots, 26 years older
Rudolf I — first Habsburg king, who won Austria for his house, 47 years older
Giotto — painter and architect, 2 years younger
Albert I — Habsburg king murdered by his own nephew, John the Parricide, 10 years older
Henry VII — Luxembourg emperor on whom Dante pinned his hopes for a revived empire, 8 years younger

Ivan Kalita — prince who began the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow, 23 years younger
Yury of Moscow — first Moscow prince to become grand prince of Vladimir, 16 years younger
Daniel of Moscow — first prince of Moscow, founder of the Moscow line of the Rurikids, 4 years older

Marco Polo — Venetian traveller, 11 years older
Kublai Khan — Great Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty, 50 years older
Emperor Go-Daigo — emperor who overthrew the Kamakura shogunate, 23 years younger
Ashikaga Takauji — founder of the Muromachi shogunate who turned on Go-Daigo, 40 years younger
Gajah Mada — prime minister of Majapahit, 25 years younger