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The issuance publication of the Divine Comedy is often seen as the beginning of the Renaissance and the end of the Late Medieval Period in Italy. This is despite the fact that even though the poem's subject of the great epic is religion and salvation, which . It seems contrary to the spirit of the Renaissance which that extolled the pleasures of this world and the individualto have started with work focused on religion. Dante did not believe that this world was an antechamber to the next world but had its own value and merits.  Unlike conventional Christian morality, he did not think that it was wrong to be happy and to enjoy this life. The great poet did not believe that eternal salvation and earthly happiness were incompatible. Dante also argued that it was necessary for a person to contribute to civic and political life and it was indeed virtuous. This idea proved to be very influential upon later humanists, who played a crucial role in the development of the Renaissance .<ref>Fortin, Ernest L. Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Dante and his precursors (Lexington, Lexington Books, 2002), p 14</ref>.