What year was Dante Alighieri born?

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265. The exact day is unknown, but historians generally place his birth in Florence around late May or early June of that year.

The year is inferred from clues in Dante's own works rather than from a surviving birth record. In the opening of Inferno, Dante says he is midway through the journey of life during his imagined journey in 1300. Medieval readers commonly understood the midpoint of a human life as about 35, which points to a birth around 1265.

Additional clues appear in Paradiso, where Dante suggests that he was born under Gemini. In 1265, the Sun was in Gemini during roughly the period from May 11 to June 11 according to the Julian calendar. These hints help narrow the season, but they do not establish a precise date.

Some references therefore give Dante's birth as “c. 1265,” meaning circa 1265. That qualification does not make 1265 a wrong quiz answer: it is the accepted conventional year. The nearby dates 1250, 1260, and 1270 are not the standard scholarly estimate.