Dante Alighieri was born in Florence Italy in 1265. In 1301, a political dispute lead to his exile from Florence.

Over the next few years he made his home in Verona, Lucca and other cities. By 1310 he had written Inferno and Purgatorio, the first two books of his Divine Comedy.

He wrote the third and concluding book, Paradiso, in the years after he found sanctuary in Ravenna in 1318.

An allegorical account of his wanderings in a spiritual wilderness and eventual salvation under the guidance of his beloved Beatrice, The Divine Comedy is recognised as Dante's masterwork and a landmark of world literature. He died in exile in 1321 and was buried in Ravenna.

Michael Palmer was born in London in 1963. He took an apprenticeship with British Airways in 1980 and, once completed, he joined a flight simulation company. In the mid-1980s the opportunity arose for him to work as a technician in the printing industry. Throughout the 1990s he wrote short sketches and one-liners for a variety of shows on BBC radio and ITV, before concentrating on writing projects. Michael has had a lifelong interest in cars - Alvis, Bently, Bristol, Jaguar and Morgan - and can be spotted regularly on the Kent roads at the wheel of his royal ivory 1997 Morgan 4/4.