1265 ? 1321), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher.
Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin,
His depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art.
He is described as the “father” of the Italian language,[11] and in Italy he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta (“the Supreme Poet”).
Divine Comedy is a long Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered to be the pre-eminent work in Italian literature[1] and one of the greatest works of world literature.[2] The poem’s imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language.[3] It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Domenico di Michelino’s 1465 fresco
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Mural of Dante in the Uffizi, Florence, by Andrea del Castagno, c. 1450
