Dante Alighieri

Ezio: "Who were these men he condemned to hell?"

Sofia: "Political opponents, men who wronged him. Alighieri's quill cuts deeply, no?"

Ezio: "Sì. It is a subtle way to seek revenge."

—Ezio Auditore and Sofia Sartor, upon Ezio's reading of the Inferno.

Durante degli Alighieri (1265 – 1321), commonly known as Dante, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages, famed as the writer of the Divine Comedy. He was also a covert member of the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins.

Biography

Life as an Assassin

"And so began my apprenticeship with Dante Alighieri, one that was to destroy every bit of happiness I would ever have."

―Domenico Auditore.

Throughout his life, Dante rose through the ranks of the Assassin Brotherhood and became one of its senior members.

In the late 13th century, Dante was tasked with the training of the son of a fellow Assassin, who would later be known as Domenico Auditore, the founder of the Auditore family and a descendant of a long line of Assassins.

The day that Domenico first found out about the Brotherhood, his father, his father's patron Marco Polo, and Dante were present. At the time, Domenico was a sailor who carried cargo across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and Marco explained that Dante would train him in the ways of the Order in exchange for transport to Spain.

Dante met with Domenico repeatedly before they departed from Venice, first conversing with him about practical needs for the journey, such as supplies, then moving on to deeper lessons, and speaking of "higher things about life, love, honor and justice".

Dante showed Domenico the Codex of the legendary Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, and taught him the Creed. Through their lessons, Dante told his apprentice that society was "set up in such a way as to control its members, to stop us from thinking, from seeing". Soon, Domenico had learned to "look past all laws and illusions", and see that the people deserved freedom.

Later life and death

"Dante intended to take the Codex to Spain where it would be safe. But he was being watched."

―Domenico Auditore.

Before his journey to Barcelona could take place, Dante was murdered by Templars on a trip to gather his belongings in Ravenna. Domenico's father explained to him that Dante had been tasked with delivering the Codex to Spain, and urged him to take on the responsibility instead.

As a result of Dante's death, the Assassins discovered that the Templars were never destroyed despite Thomas de Carneillon's efforts to erase them in 1307. Though Domenico lost his wife to pirates during his attempt to fulfill Dante's mission, he was able to scatter the pages of the Codex in the ship's cargo, preventing them from falling into Templar hands.

Legacy

Dante's most enduring work, written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin as was custom for poetry in that time, is the Divine Comedy, comprised of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. In 1511, almost 200 years after its publication, the Italian Assassins' Mentor Ezio Auditore read Inferno in Sofia Sartor's shop. Sofia evoked her admiration for Dante's genius, and Ezio commented on Dante's "subtle way of revenge" through his poems, where he depicted his enemies as being tortured in Hell.

Incidentally, two of the people Dante placed in Hell's lowest circle of traitors were Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus for having betrayed and killed Gaius Julius Caesar, despite the fact that Brutus and Longinus were Roman Hidden Ones working to stop Caesar, who was a leading figure among the Order of the Ancients. In Paradiso, Dante's guide is Bernard de Clairvaux, a French monk who publicly co-founded the Knights Templar.

In 1515, the Assassin Giovanni Borgia was given a copy of the Divine Comedy by Ezio Auditore during his training with the Mentor. The following year, Giovanni gave the book to the rogue Assassin Hiram Stoddard after preventing his theft of an Apple of Eden. This copy eventually became a family heirloom and, by the late 17th century, was in the possession of Hiram's descendant Tom Stoddard. In 1692, Tom passed it down to fellow Assassin Jennifer Querry's son David to teach him how to read.

Trivia

• Durante is an Italian variant of the Latin name Durans that means "enduring". Alighieri is a name that ultimately stems from Germanic roots nadal, "noble", or ald, "old", and gar, "spear."

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed II (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations novel (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (mentioned in Database entry only)
• Assassin's Creed (Titan Comics) (mentioned only)
• Echoes of History – Ragnarök (mentioned only)