Much of the life of Dante Alighieri is obscure, and the known facts are surrounded by a haze of legend and conjecture. He was born in Florence in 1265, of a family noble but not wealthy. His early education is a matter of inference, but we know that he learned the art of writing verse from the poets of France and Provence, and that after he reached manhood he devoted much time to study and became profoundly learned. As a young man he saw military service and shared in the recreations of his con temporaries; and he married some time before he was thirty-two. In Dante's day politics in Florence were exciting and dangerous; and after a few years of participation in public affairs he was con demned to death by his political enemies in 1302. He saved him self by exile, and never returned to his native town. The rest of his life was mainly spent wondering about the north of Italy, in Verona, Bologna, Pisa, Lucca, and finally Ravenna, where he died in 1321. During the years of his exile he found generous patrons in men like the heads of the S cala family in Verona and Guido Novella da Polenta in Ravenna; and at Bologna and else where he was welcomed as a teacher.