The Divine Comedy (Italian: Commedia, later christened "Divina" by Giovanni Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature ever. A culmination of the medieval world-view of the afterlife, it helped establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian standard.