Considered by many to be the greatest work ever written in Italian and among the finest in any language, Dante Alighieri stands in history as a genius of words. Much of the modern, popular conception of hell is due to the words of Dante, who doubt never meant it as a literal description, but a spiritual allegory. Regardless of the fictional content, there is truth within this work that is fit for the scholar, the mystic or simply the curious. There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand eddies in a whirlwind..