Italy, in 13th century, was the epitome of culture, with contributors in various fields of art. It was the time when the church bells and the bells of the castles were tolling against eachother. The Renaissance was looming low on the Italian culture when Dante appeared on the scene to leave his imprints on time.

Dante used his art of poetry against the dominance of church in politics at the end of the Medieval Age. He voiced the changing times and represented the Italian cultural heritage.

The littérateur George Steiner proclaimed The Divine Comedy as the greatest book of the last millennium. He says, "Dante’s totality of poetic form and philosophic thought, of ‘local universality’ and language, remains unrivalled. At a time when the nation of culture and of European culture in particular, is somewhat in doubt, Dante is the sovereign underwriter." Dante Alighieri’s most celebrated work is the La Commedia (which came to be known after his death as La Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy)). It is a vision of hell, purgatory and heaven and gives an encyclopedic view of the highest culture and knowledge of his age. 

Dante Alighieri is beyond doubt the greatest of Italian poets and many readers think, one of the greatest poets that Western civilization has produced. W B Yeats called him ‘the chief imagination of Christendom. T S Eliot, one of the must prolific poet-critics of the 20^th century said : "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third." 

The work of modern poets throughout the world has been inspired by Dante and suffused with Dantean imagery especially that of Ezra Pound and T S Eliot, Gabriele D’ Annunzio, Paul Claudel and Anna Akhmatova.