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Dante was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. Predominantly known for the the Divine Comedy, originally called "Comedia" and later christened "Divina" by Boccaccio, a work widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. He chose to write in his vernacular Tuscan Italian dialect, rather than Latin, as was the normal for scholarly and artistic works in this time period. This choice helped establish his Tuscan dialect as the predominant Italian dialect in forming modern Italian. While born in Florence, he was exiled from the city in 1302 for political reasons and was expected to pay a fine as part of recompense--he never paid the fine and it wasn't until June 2008 that the city of Florence reversed his exile.