Which real woman is traditionally identified with Dante's Beatrice?

Beatrice Portinari is the real woman traditionally identified with Dante’s Beatrice. She is usually described as Beatrice di Folco Portinari, a Florentine woman who married the banker Simone de’ Bardi.

Dante presents Beatrice in the Vita Nuova as the beloved figure who inspires his poetry, and in the Divine Comedy she becomes his guide through the latter part of Purgatorio and through Paradise. In the poem, she represents far more than a romantic interest: she is associated with divine grace, theology, faith, and the soul’s movement toward God.

The identification is traditional rather than absolutely certain. Dante never plainly gives her full civic identity in his own writings, and surviving records about Portinari are sparse. A 1287 will of her father, Folco Portinari, is important evidence connecting a daughter named Bice with Simone de’ Bardi. Scholars therefore distinguish between the historical woman and the highly symbolic literary Beatrice. Gemma Donati, Dante’s wife, is a frequent mix-up, but she is not the Beatrice of the poem.