Dude, I consider Italian the modern Latin and since Latin is the most influential language of all time, I consider Italian the most influential. Notice Im not saying most wide spread, but influential. You might disagree.
Latin is not dead it just evolved into Italian (and other Romance languages).
The Germanic languages aka English is by far the most influental, it's spoken all over the world.
Latin never reached the whole world as a lingua franca like English did.
English is the reason you're able to speak with people in a forum like this from totally different parts of the world, where you else had no chance of it.
We can dislike the Brits for many things, but no one ever build an empire like them strecthing all over the world in its prime. Its still felt to this day with the commonwealth.
As for Latin languages, Spanish and French are far more influental than Italian. Portuguese even so as well.