Dante Alighieri is making news around the world, 700 years after his death, particularly in Italy where is a national icon. Born in Florence in 1265, the mediaeval poet and philosopher would become known as the Father of the Italian language thanks to his epic work, The Divine Comedy. But why exactly did La Divina Commedia make such an indelible impression on both literature and theology, and why is it so important seven centuries after it was written?

Representing a 14th-century vision of the afterlife, the long narrative poem describes Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead: Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (heaven). Crucially, Dante wrote the poem's 14,233 lines in the vernacular, opting for the Tuscan dialect which was accessible to the masses rather than the traditional Latin reserved for the most educated readers.