The Italian epic came of age with Giuseppe de Liguoro's imaginative silent film of the Inferno, loosely adapted from Dante and inspired by the illustrations of Gustave Dore.
L'Inferno was first screened in Naples in the Teatro Mercandante on 10th March 1911. The film took over three years to make and was the first full length Italian feature film ever made.
Its success was not confined to Italy, it was an International hit taking more that $2 million in the United States alone.