Dante's Inferno

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Firstly please note: These notes have been placed on the Internet for study purposes only, not to promulgate the type of Medieval blind faith that was considered acceptable in Dante's time. Please remember that Dante's great poetry added fuel to the fire of the Crusades; and those that do promulgate the idea of blind faith often have a blind faith themselves.

Having said that the most surprising thing to me about reading Dante's 'Hell' is how little it has to do with religion, and how much it has to do with the politics of the church and the secular politics of Florence. In my view, Dante appears to have used an imaginary afterlife as a means of revenge on his own political enemies and those that did not conform to his own medieval world view.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265. The major struggle in Italy at during his lifetime was between the Guelphs, a nationalist party who supported the papacy; and the Ghibellines, who supported European unification under the Holy Roman Empire (whose power after the Great Interregnum [1254 - 1273] was waning.) The Guelphs had been active in enlisting cities who were demanding municipal rights and liberties - and one of these was Florence.

The particular struggle going on in Florence at the time of Dante was between two factions of Guelphs - the Neri (Blacks) and Bianchi (Whites). Dante was one of the Bianchi.

The two factions were interlocked in rivalry, with the Whites wishing to remain independent of both the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, and the Blacks who saw the Pope as an ally against imperial power. It was at Dante's request that in the cause of peace the leaders of both factions were exiled. Pope Boniface VIII enabled the leaders of the Blacks to return to Florence in 1301; whence they seized power. They banned Dante from the city in 1302 for two years, fining him heavily. He refused to pay, and was therefore condemned to death in his absence.

Dante spent his exile in northern Italian cities, mainly Verona, and Paris; eventually transforming in his political beliefs - he became a Ghibelline.

He died in exile in 1321.

It was probably in 1307 that Dante started work on La Divina Commedia 'The Divine Comedy'. The great work is in three sections; L'Inferno, Il Purgatorio and Il Paradiso, and the original Italian is written in a complicated rhyming scheme called terza rima (third rhyme). He was a great fan of the Roman poet Virgil; and based his idea of the cosmography of Hell totally on Virgil's pre-Christian description of the underworld as is found in book 6 of the Aeneid, in which Aeneas attempts to find his father in the underworld. In fact it is Virgil, himself residing in the top layer of Hell known as limbo (having been unlucky enough to have been contemporary with Christ and therefore not aware of Christianity) who acts as Dante's guide. They descend together down through the various layers of Hell and climb the island of Mount Purgatory. However, Dante is guided around Paradise by the love of his life, Beatrice, who Boccaccio identified with the Portinari family.

Despite the fact that, as they get into the lower depths of the underworld, the tortures inflicted on the mythical and (predominantly Florentine) political acquaintances that Dante encounters and questions get more and more horrifying, often involving fire, the general temperature drops until they reach the permanently frozen area in which the Devil resides at the very centre of the earth. Hell is organised into a series of circles, one on top of the other, narrowing as it gets deeper and deeper, until the travellers reach the area Dante calls Malebolge, which is described in canto VIII. It becomes clear at the very end of L'Inferno that Hell is situated underneath Jerusalem, and that when the devil fell, he crashed into the earth in the southern hemisphere at the very antipodes of Jerusalem, a point marked by the island of Mount Purgatory.

Some of the souls interrogated by Dante are verbose, and some are ashamed and tell him to leave them alone. Some, indeed, Dante has a sneaking admiration for, whilst some recognise that Dante's body has substance, and enquire of him why he has reached the afterlife before his time. Although the word comedy at one level refers to the ultimate union with God in Paradise, there is a good deal of earthy humour in L'Inferno.

John Crocker 1st October 1999

To Hell and Back

Canto I
Halfway through life (i.e. at the age of thirty-five) Dante finds himself in a dark wood. Shortly afterwards Dante meets a leopard, a lion and then a wolf, from whom he is about to flee when he is interceded by Virgil.

Canto II
Dante has doubts about his expedition. Virgil reveals that he has been sent by Beatrice and St Lucy in heaven to guide and protect Dante.

Canto III
This marks the beginning of their real descent into Hell. Dante comes across the neutral souls who knew God but 'lived without blame, without praise'. He seems to have nothing but disdain for these souls.

Canto IV
Down they go now to the first circle, the area known as Limbo. The area devoted to poor souls unfortunate enough not to have known Christianity - this is where Virgil himself normally resides. It is here that Dante questions the poet about the episode known as the 'Harrowing of Hell', and they go on to meet some of the greatest people of the pre-Christian era. The souls here, for not loving God during their lifetime as is due, are 'punished in living with hopeless desires'.

Canto V
The travellers descend to the second circle. King Minos guards the entrance, and it is he who decides to which part of Hell the sinners will be assigned. They carry on in and come face to face with those who have committed the sin of lust. This section features the wonderful story of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, whose spirits are tossed about by the high winds hell that meet in this circle.

Canto VI
In the third circle, which is guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, they meet those who have committed the sin of gluttony. Heavy hail, dark rain and snow sheet down through the black air; the earth they sink into stinks.

Canto VII
Pluto guards the fourth circle which is the final destination of rich misers (mainly clerics), condemned to a life of rolling weights with their chests and crashing into one another. Down to the fifth circle they go, encountering the angry, naked and continuously fighting each other; and stuck mudbound below the water are those incapable of feeling anger even when justice demands it.

Canto VIII
They arrive now at a tower, from where Phlegias the ferryman transports them along the river Styx towards the city of Dis.

Canto IX
On the marshes outside Dis they are attacked by the Gorgons. A messenger from Heaven comes down and opens the city gate for them. They enter and are surrounded by vast lands full of open tombs with fires between them 'making them absolutely scalding, like iron needing no more bellows.' In these tombs are the arch heretics and their disciples of every sect.

Canto X
Here they find the graveyard of Epicurus and his followers.

Canto XI
They go inland to the first of three lesser circles. The poet here describes these next three circles, and tells Dante that the top circle (for the souls of the violent) is divided into three rings for those violent to others, to themselves and to the deity.

Canto XII
They climb down an area where a rock fall had occurred on the occasion of Jesus' Harrowing of Hell to find the souls of those guilty of violence to others.

Canto XIII
The travellers come to a wood which the poet describes as 'the second ring of this circle'. Souls here are victims of suicide, and having thrown away their earthly bodies are encapsulated in foliage.

Canto XIV
Now they come to the border of the third ring, and a sandy desert raining flakes of fire, 'garlanded' by the river and wood. Those punished here are guilty of blasphemy.

Canto XV
They walk along a stone bank with a dyke. The sin here punishable by having to lie for a century with nothing to fan the burning flames of the fiery rain is sodomy.

Canto XVI
Here they find the political and military sodomites.

Canto XVII
The last ring (the seventh circle). Punished here are those guilty of fraud. As in the previous two circles, the heat of the fire and the burning sand is intense. The travellers are transported down again on the back of the monster with a human face and the body of a reptile called Geryon.

Canto XVIII
The travellers, with Geryon's help, have now reached Malebolge (Evilbags), an area with a great hole in the centre surrounded by a plane of land sculpted into ten ridges, or bolgia, in which sinners are 'bagged'. The plane, which slopes up and away from the hole, is surrounded by a high cliff. The first bolgia contains the pimps and seducers of women. They also visit the second bolgia of flatterers, or arse-lickers.

Canto XIX
The third bolgia is the final destination of simonists (those guilty of the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices and the trafficking in sacraments). One of the occupants is Simon Magus, from whose name the word simony was coined. The occupants are imprisoned in holes of the rock walls, their souls continuously on fire, while their feet and calves protrude. Virgil carries Dante down to speak to the occupants.

Canto XX
The occupants of the fourth bolgia are twisted so that their heads face backwards and they walk in reverse procession, weeping continually. This is the punishment of astrologers.

Canto XXI
The inhabitants of the fifth bolgia are stewed by a thick, bubbling, dark pitch. It is here that the travellers first come across the Malebranche (Evilclaws) - the devils guarding this bolgia, who constantly keep prodding the sinners (swindlers) back under the pitch. Virgil protects Dante from these monsters. This whole canto (known as the comedy within the Comedy) describes the comic goings-on concerning these devils.

Canto XXII
Still in the fifth bolgia, the devils find many more souls to terrify. At the end, while they are 'teasing' one of the sinners, he gives them the slip.

Canto XXIII
Realising that the devils may now turn their attention onto them, our travellers escape now to the sixth bolgia, which is outside the power of their pursuers. Here the sinners are weighed down by clothes that look like gold, but are made of lead; the punishment of hypocrites.

Canto XXIV
The seventh bolgia is a snake pit, from which the naked sinners have no protection. They are robbers, and consequently their hands are also fettered.

Canto XXV
More descriptions of thieves in the seventh bolgia.

Canto XXVI
They climb the rock-face on all fours to the eighth bolgia. Punished here are the fraudulent who used their intelligence for political advantage through craft and deceit. Virgil asks Ulysses 'where he disappeared into death,' and is told a detailed story of Dante's invention.

Canto XXVII
The travellers hear from others in the eighth bolgia.

Canto XXVIII
Into the ninth bolgia now; and Dante's horrifying vision of the 'sowers of splits and schisms' features Mohammed, the founder of Islam, who, along with the other sinners here has been split from chin to crotch with his guts hanging out. Mohammed asks Dante to warn brother Dolcino, founder of the Apostolic Brothers (a sect interested in returning to primitive Christianity) that he is heading for this same area of Hell.

Canto XXIX
The travellers are still in the ninth bolgia at the start of this canto, when Dante sees someone of his own blood, Geri del Bello. Dante is concerned that his murder hasn't been avenged. Virgil however encourages Dante on to the tenth bolgia, the ultimate destination of the falsifiers of metals (alchemists). Their punishment is to be riddled with disease.

Canto XXX
Still in the tenth bolgia, the travellers now come across the falsifiers of identity, money and language. Gianni Schicchi falsified a will, as celebrated in Puccini's comic opera of that name. Two of the ghosts, a forger of money called Adam and Sinon, who persuaded the Trojans to take the wooden horse into their city, start arguing, and Virgil has to drag Dante away.

Canto XXXI
They press on and get to the edge of the hole, which is surrounded by horrible giants. The giant they make towards is Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-10, 11:1-9). They find another giant, Antaeus, who takes Virgil in his hands, the poet clinging onto Dante, and they gently land on the bottom of Cocytus, the floor of hell.

Canto XXXII
Under their feet they find a lake of ice, in which the ghosts are frozen. This area is known as Caina, because it contains sinners who betrayed members of their own family. They move on to Antenora, the second part of Cocytus where the political traitors are held, whose tears freeze at source.

Canto XXXIII
It is now that Dante encounters the sad case of Count Ugolino, who, being a traitor himself, was imprisoned by Archbishop Ruggieri with two of his sons and two grandsons; where they were all left to die. They now moved on to the third section of Cocytus, called Tolomea, which is for those who betray their guests.

Canto XXXIV
In the final section of Cocytus the souls who betrayed their benefactors are found, fully iced over. Here Dis, the three-faced devil himself, resides at the centre of the earth: Cassius, Brutus and Judas are also to be found here. To make their exit, the poets are able to climb up the devil's body and through the cavern made by a stream, to emerge at the antipodes of Jerusalem, and the location of Mount Purgatory.