Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is commonly considered the greatest single work of all European literature, but this three-part epic poem isn't only for those with a taste for medieval Italy.

Seven hundred years after Dante's death in 1321, Katya Adler, the BBC's Europe Editor and lover of all things Italian, sets out to discover why the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso are such key works for the 21st Century.

With Michael Sheen as Dante.

Three guides conduct Katya through their region of the afterlife - just as Virgil, and Dante’s great lost love Beatrice, do in the original - taking her to hell and back again.

Each guide proposes seven reasons why Dante (a great lover of numerology as well as a great poet) is such a powerful contemporary read - adding up to 21 reasons in the 21st year of the 21st century.

3. Dr Vittorio Montemaggi, Senior Lecturer in Religion and the Arts at King's College, London, and Acting Director of the Von Huge Institute in Cambridge, is Katya's guide through Paradise. Although Paradiso is often considered the least appealing of Dante's three regions, Vittorio points out surprising resonances for today, and shares his own personal epiphany, experienced while reading Dante with inmates of a high-security prison, that we each carry within us a spark of Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.

Specially commissioned music by Emily Levy, sung by Michael Solomon Williams, Jon Stainsby and Emily Levy.

Further contribtutions from Fatemeh Keshavarz, Professor of Persian Studies at the University of Maryland and presenter of podcast, Radio Rumi

Italian readings by Alession Baldini.

Producer: Beaty Rubens Show less