Dante Alighieri: poet, philosopher, and potentially the pettiest man in all of 14th-century Italy. Which is, to be clear, meant entirely as a compliment.
If you’re not familiar with the name, and don’t know why anyone might be discussing a medieval poet’s levels of petty, let me introduce you: Dante (as he’s most commonly known – you know, like Beyoncé, or Cher), wrote a narrative poem made up of three sections – ‘Inferno’ (hell), ‘Purgatorio’ (purgatory) and ‘Paradiso’ (heaven), collectively known as The Divine Comedy. These poems are still famous today, partly because they have inspired loads of other cultural depictions of the afterlife since they were written – most recently, my book, The Dark Within Us, in which a modern teenager descends into Dante’s version of Hell.
So, why…
