Arcturus

The Divine Comedy, the first book to be written in the Italian vulgare instead of Latin, was begun in 1308 and contains three cantiche – Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Paradise) – written in terza rima, a verse scheme of three-line stanzas with interlocking rhyme patterns (aba, bcb, cdc, and so on). Dante’s influences included the classics, the neo-Platonists, Aristotle, natural philosophy and theology.