Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the most important & innovative figures of the European Middle Ages. Writing his Comedy (the epithet Divine was added by later admirers) in exile from his native Florence he aimed to address a world gone astray both morally & politically. At the same time he sought to push back the restrictive rules which traditionally governed writing in the Italian vernacular to produce a radically new & all-encompassing work. The Comedy tells the story of the journey of a character who is at one & the same time both Dante himself & Everyman. In the Inferno Dantes protagonist
- & his reader
- is presented with a graphic vision of the dreadful consequences of sin & encounters an all-too-human array of noble grotesque beguiling ridiculous & horrific characters.