A number of Italian writers, most notably the poet Dante Alighieri (DAHN-tay al-ig-YEER-ee; 1265-1321), helped bridge the medieval and Renaissance periods. In his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy (1308-21), Dante described an allegorical journey through Hell (the Inferno), Purgatory, and Paradise. The book, a "comedy," in the ancient sense, meaning that it ends on a happy note, is a veritable encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Practically every important person from premodern Europe is mentioned somewhere on its pages.
Like the troubadours before him, Dante wrote in the vernacular, the language of everyday people—in this case Italian instead of Latin. Petrarch (PEE-trark; 1304-1374) also wrote in Italian, but gained his greatest recognition during his lifetime for his work in Latin. Petrarch's purpose in using Latin, however, was very un-medieval. He was one of the first writers to take note of the growing Renaissance movement, and he used ancient Rome's language as a way of harkening back to the last great flowering of civilization.
Medieval events and trends influenced the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio (boh-KAHT-choh; 13131375) and Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400), yet their work was far from medieval in character. In Boccaccio's Decameron (dee-KAM-uh-rahn; 1353), a group of young men and women escape the Plague by going to the countryside, and there they amuse themselves by telling tales. What sets the Decameron apart from most earlier literature is its natural, everyday tone, which influenced Chaucer in writing The Canterbury Tales. The latter is a collection of stories—some moral and uplifting, some bawdy and off-color— told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury.
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