Cacciaguida

Cacciaguida degli Elisei was an Italian crusader and the great-great-grandfather of Dante Alighieri.
Little is known about his life. He was born in Florence, and two documents from 1189 and 1201 mention his existence. The 1189 document lists his sons as Preitenetto and Alighiero, the latter being Dante's great-grandfather, and the source of his surname.
All other details of his biography are those from his most famous descendant's works. Dante recounts that Cacciaguida joined the Second Crusade and was there knighted by Emperor Conrad III before dying in the Holy Land.
Dante meets Cacciaguida in Paradiso, precisely in the canti XV–XVII. Cacciaguida is the only ancestor of Dante he encounters, and the elder serves as a father figure to the poet, and a parallel to Virgil's Aeneas meeting with his own father Anchises. As Dante addressed him:
Paradiso, Canto XVI, 16–21