I never said it was "The Divine Comedy" by Dante. I also don't remember where I saw the story noting the exact fiction supposedly responsible for the myth. Also, note that the "people in Columbus' time thought the Earth was flat" myth is a recent invention. Probably dates to the 19th century and the Flat Earth Society. I don't know for certain, when it came about. Might make an interesting Linux webcrawling macro.
[This is not to say that in all the ages there were not proponents of a Flat Earth model, hell someone even proposed the Earth was a trapezoid. They just weren't the predominant belief, after Pliny proved the Earth was spherical that is.]
-----Original Message----- From: Dustin Decker Subject: Flat Earther Society and Dante
If one reads "The Divine Comedy" (The work by Dante Alighieri cited in this post) you will find this is not true.