Henry F. Cary

The Divine Comedy
by Henry F. Cary

The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian standard. It is divided into three parts, the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. This version of the Divine Comedy includes famous illustrations of climatic scenes in the story and an Introduction along with background history of the Divine Comedy.