Dante Alighieri, born to a middle-class Florentine family with some pretensions to ancient nobility, was nine years old in 1275, when he encountered eight-year-old Beatrice Portinari and developed an intensely spiritual devotion to her.

Dante has received a good education both in the classics and in scholastic Christian literature, also studying painting and music.

Having begun, at a very early age, to write poetry—largely love lyrics (canzoni) in the style of Guido Guinizelli and Guido Cavalcanti—he had encountered Beatrice for a second time in 1283 and, despite his own marriage, in 1285, to Gemma Donati (which produces several children) and Beatrice's to Simon de'Bardi, has remained spiritually devoted to Beatrice.

In the political wars between the pro-papal Guelphs and the Empire-aligned Ghibellines, Dante, a Guelph, had fought in 1289 with his fellow Florentines against the Ghibellines at the Battle of Campaldino.

Following the death, on June 8, 1290, of twenty-four-year-old Beatrice, he had composed, in her honor, his first book, La vita nuova (“The New Life”).

Completed in 1293, the work embodies the progression of his courtly love for her in the love poetry contained within.