Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209) and Dante (1265-1321) share unique, creative imaginations and eloquence. Even though they lived in different eras and diverse cultural settings, their literary works have a few thematic similarities, including their interest in religious symbolism and love poetry. They also share the ability to produce captivating images and tales. For example, Dante's enduring literary portrayals of the angelic and demonic characters in his Divine Comedy share some of the fictional and fantastical qualities of Nezami's of five iterations of the story of ascension and his story of Mahan from Seven Treasures. Moreover, in terms of form, they both make use of heavy allegory in the construction of their literary works. Beyond these surface similarities, their works are profoundly different in their literary message and allegorical meanings. This presentation analyzes the concepts of love and religion as they appear in both poets' works. It also discusses the distinct functions of allegory in these poets' poetry. Despite numerous recent studies of the shared qualities of the works of these two poets, I argue that these similarities in their works manifest only on the surface and that their works are profoundly different in their contents and allegorical meanings. For Nezami, those seemingly common subjects and themes serve in the construction of what I term Nezamian allegory, a self-contained literary construct that he uses to unfold his narrative.