Dante Alighieri (c. 1265–1321) was a prolific poet from Florence, Italy. Renowned for his epic poem The Divine Comedy, he is regarded as one of the central figures of Medieval European literature. His vivid descriptions established him as the ‘Father’ of the modern Italian language, as he eschewed Latin in favour of the vernacular Tuscan dialect.

An artist who worked across many media, the multi-skilled Gustave Doré remains unequalled as a supremely talented illustrator, whose detailed and imaginative engravings for major works of literature – from Cervantes’s Don Quixote to Dante’s Divine Comedy, and even the Bible – have hugely influenced the way we see many cultural and literary characters and still inspire today.