Author of The Divine Comedy, Dante was the first to write in what he called "Italian," a combination of Tuscan dialect and latin so that his work could reach a wider audience. He loved Beatrice, a woman he barely knew, from the age of nine until his death, thereby becoming one of the first proponents and practitioners of courtly love. Dante was exiled from Florence due to battles and skirmishes typical of the Middle Ages. Renegade Politician. 
 

“Through me you pass into the city of woe: 
Through me you pass into eternal pain: 
Through me among the people lost for aye. 
Justice the founder of my fabric moved: 
To rear me was the task of power divine, 
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. 
Before me things create were none, save things 
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure. 
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” 

— The Divine Comedy