Dante dies, September 13, 1321

Dante Alighieri was born in June 1264 and died today September 13th 1321. Dante, which translates as "the giver," towers over the middle ages as its most prominent literary figure, creating from medieval beliefs, a poetry that has claimed a captive audience ever since. Dante’s poetry has the literary sense of Homer, the epic retelling of the culture’s values restored in the vernacular that Dante seemed to legitimize with the poetic legacy he passed on to Renaissance authors and to Shakespeare. No modern writer seems to define his age as Dante does to the Middle Ages. So what made this man so remarkable that he is listed as #2 in Daniel S. Burt's "The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time"?