Dante's Divine Comedy is one of the greatest piece of art ever written in all centuries from anyone and it's the distinctive Italian treasure of literature.
Italian was born as modern language on the day the great Florentinian created it.

It's such a geniouses work it requests deep knowledges for appreciate it and many Italians are not able at all to understand it, let alone 99,999999% of not Italian people (ban Hannibal Lecter, you know :P).

So here I am gonna give hints of it, hoping everyone will be stimulated in getting more into it.

if you want to mail me about some specific parts of it you would like to have a comment or explanation over, do it! :)

For understanding the basis of Dante's writings you have to enter a bit in his beliefs and try to understand how was it like to live in Florence in between 1200 and 1300.

In Communs worlds there was a constant fighting between people called Guelfi and those called Gibellini, and the differences between them was the first were faithful to Pope power in political as well while others were thinking just politicians (namely the Emperors and Kings) were allowed to dominate politically people.
Spirituality for them had NOTHING to do with Earthly things.
Dante was thinkin so: he was laical in the core, really modern under this aspect, in conformity with his free soul and mind.

The Divine Comedy shows constantly his despise for Popes trying to be not siritual chief but rich king,a nd he places so often Popes in the hell you could think he has no religion.
Instead is the opposite: his faith was great and pure, and you get it from the Heaven he wrote.