Guido Guinizelli is considered the founder of the Dolce Stil Novo, a school that added a philosophical dimension to traditional love poetry. This new understanding of love, expressed in a smooth, pure style, influenced some Florentine poets, especially Guido Cavalcanti and the young Dante Alighieri. Dante's The Divine Comedy is a masterpiece of world literature, helped create the Italian literary language. Furthermore, the poet invented the difficult terza rima for his epic journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
The two great writers of the 14th century, Petrarch and Boccaccio, sought out and imitated the works of antiquity and cultivated their own artistic personalities. Petrarch achieved fame through his collection of poems, the Canzoniere. Petrarch's love poetry served as a model for centuries. Equally influential was Boccaccio's Decameron, one of the most popular collections of short stories ever written.