Dante has been called "the Father of the Italian language". In Italy, Dante is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Let those come to us ...

Dante has been called "the Father of the Italian language". In Italy, Dante is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Let those come to us -- whosoever they be -- who, pressed by the management of civil and domestic life, have felt the human hunger for True Knowledge . . . and let all of us sit together at one table -- for the Banquet! Written in his final days, after the completion of his masterful Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri's The Banquet presents many of his most compelling thoughts as to how a life of maturity and civility should be conducted.