Divine comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Durante Degli Alighieri
• Born Mid-May to mid-June, c. 1265
Florence, Republic of Florence
• Died September 13/14, 1321
(aged about 56)
Ravenna, Papal States
• Occupation Statesman, poet, language
theorist, political theorist
• Nationality Italian
• Period Late Middle Ages
• Literary movement Dolce Stil Novo

STRUCTURE OF THE STORY
The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into
three canticas (Italian plural cantiche)
Inferno
(Hell)
Purgatori
(Purgatory)
Paradiso
(Paradise)
-each consisting of 33 cantos (Italian plural canti). An initial canto, serving as
an introduction to the poem and generally considered to be part of the first
cantica, brings the total number of cantos to 100.
Additionally, the verse scheme used, terza rima, is hendecasyllabic (lines of
eleven syllables), with the lines composing tercets according to the rhyme
scheme aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ....

The physical aspect of Hell is a
gigantic funnel that leads to the
very center of the Earth.
According to the legend used by
Dante, this huge, gigantic hole in
the Earth was made when God
threw Satan (Lucifer) and his
band of rebels out of Heaven
with such force that they created
a giant hole in the Earth.
Satan was cast all the way to the
very center of the Earth, has
remained there since, and will
remain there through all of
eternity.
Circle 1: Those in Limbo
Circle 2: The Lustful
Circle 3: The Gluttonous
Circle 4: The Hoaders
Circle 5: The Wrathful
Circle 6: The Heretics
Circle 7: The Violent
Ring 1:Murderers, Robberers & Plunders
Ring 2:Suicides and those harmful to the world
Ring 3:Against GOD, Nature & Art
Circle 8: The Faudulent
Trench I: Panderers & Seducers
Trench II: Flatterers
Trench III: Simoniacs
Trench IV: Sorcerers
Trench V: Barrators
Trench VI: Hyprocrites
Trench VII: Theives
Trench VIII: Evil Counselors
Trench IX: Sowers of Discord
Trench X: Falsifiers
Circle 9: Traitors
Region 1: Kindred
Region 2: Country
Region 3: Guests
Region 4: Lords

DIVINE COMEDY
Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
BY DANTE ALIGHIERI

CANTO I The Dark worlds of Error
The Inferno follows the
wanderings of the poet Dante
as he strays off the rightful
and straight path of moral
truth and gets lost in a dark
wood. And that, folks,
is just the beginning.
At the age of thirty-five,
on the night of Good
Friday in the year 1300,
Dante finds himself lost in
a dark wood and full of
fear.

CANTO I The Dark worlds of Error
Just as three wild
animals threaten
to attack him,
Dante is rescued
by the ghost of
Virgil, a
celebrated
Roman poet and
also Dante’s idol.

CANTO II The Descent
Virgil asked the
deceased love-of-
Dante’s-life,
Beatrice, to send
someone down to
help him. Virgil to
the rescue! He’s an
appropriate guide
because he’s very
much like Dante, a
fellow writer and
famous poet.
When asked why
he came, Virgil
answers that the
head honchos of
Heaven—the
Virgin Mary and
Santa Lucia—felt
sorry for Dante.
Beatrice

CANTO III The Opportunists
(Gate)
Dante passes through the gate of
Hell, which bears an inscription
ending with the famous phrase
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi
ch'intrate", most frequently
translated as "Abandon all hope, ye
who enter here
Dante and his guide hear the
anguished screams of the
Uncommitted. These are the souls
of people who in life took no sides;
the opportunists who were for
neither good nor evil, but merely
concerned with themselves.

CANTO III The Opportunists
(Gate)
After passing through the
vestibule, Dante and Virgil
reach the ferry that will take
them across the river
Acheron and to Hell proper.
The ferry is piloted by
Charon, who does not want
to let Dante enter, for he is a
living being
Virgil forces Charon to take
him however, the passage
across the Acheron is
undescribed, since Dante
faints and does not awaken
until he is on the other side.
Charon

CANTO IV The Virtuous Pagan
Circle 1 - Limbo
The first circle of Hell (Limbo),
considered pre-Hell, just contains all
of the unbaptized and good people
born and before the coming of
Christ, who obviously couldn’t be
saved by him.

CANTO IV The Virtuous Pagan
Circle 1 - Limbo
The first circle of Hell (Limbo) :
Virgil resides here, along with
a bunch of other Greek and
Roman poets.
Dante encounters the poets
Homer, Horace, Ovid, and
Lucan, who include him in
their number and make him
"sixth in that high company".

CANTO V The Lustful
Circle 2
Dante and Virgil leave Limbo
and enter the Second Circle
— the first of the circles of
Incontinence — where the
punishments of Hell proper
begin. It is described as "a
part where no thing gleams.
They find their way hindered
by the serpentine Minos.
Minos
- who judges all of those
condemned for active,
deliberately willed sin to
one of the lower circles.
He sentences each soul to
its torment by wrapping his
tail around himself a
corresponding number of
times.

CANTO V The Lustful
Circle 2
In the second circle,
lustful sinners are tossed
around by endless
storms.

CANTO V The Lustful
Circle 2
Dante speaks to the soul
of Francesca da Rimini, a
woman who was stuck in
a loveless, arranged
marriage and committed
adultery when she fell in
love with a dashing youth
named Paolo.
Paolo
Francesca

CANTO VI The Gluttonous
Circle 3
Cerberus - the monstrous
three-headed beast of
Hell, ravenously guards
the gluttons lying in the
freezing mire, mauling
and flaying them with his
claws as they howl like
dogs.

CANTO VI The Gluttonous
Circle 3
Dante then awakes in
the third circle,
where the
Gluttonous sinners
suffer under a cold
and filthy rain.

CANTO VII The Avaricious and Prodigal
Circle 4
Virgil leads Dante on to the
fourth circle, where the
Avaricious (greedy people)
and Prodigal (reckless
spenders) roll heavy
weights in endless circles.
Circle 4 –
Guarded by Plutus.

CANTO VIII The Wrathful and Sullen
Circle 5 – The River Styx
The next stop on the
tour is the fifth circle,
where the Wrathful and
Sullen are immersed in
the muddy river Styx.
While they are crossing
the Styx, a sinner
named Filippo Argenti
reaches out to Dante
(presumably for help),
but Dante angrily
rejects him.
Philippo

CANTO IX-XI The Wrathful and Sullen
Circle 5 – The Gate of Dis
Now at the gates of
a city called Dis,
Virgil takes it upon
himself to persuade
the demon guards
to let them pass.
Unexpectedly, he
fails.

CANTO IX-XI The Wrathful and Sullen
Circle 5 – The Gate of Dis
The walls of Dis are
guarded by fallen
angels.
Demon guards
This means that instead of
continuing on with the
journey, Dante and Virgil
must wait for an angel to
come down and force
open the gates for them.

CANTOIX-XI The Heretics
Circle 6
After passing the
city of Dis, our
dynamic duo, enters
the sixth circle,
where the Heretics
lay in fiery tombs.
Dante talks to
Farinata degli
Uberti, who predicts
that Dante will have
difficulty returning
to Florence from
exile.
Farinata degli Uberti

CANTO XII The Violent against
Neighbors Circle 7
This circle houses the
violent. Its entry is guarded
by Minotaur.
Divided into 3 rings:
Outer ring
Middle ring
Inner ring
Minotaur

CANTO XII The Violent
Circle 7
As they cross from
the sixth to the
seventh circle, where
the Violent are
punished, Virgil finally
begins explaining the
layout of Hell.
Violent against their neighbors
Circle 7
Violent against themselves
Violent against GOD
Outer ring
Middle ring
Inner ring

CANTO XII
The Violent against their
neighbors
Circle 7 – Outer Ring
Outer ring –
housing the violent
against people and
property, who are
immersed in
Phlegethon – a river
of boiling blood, to a
level commensurate
with their sins.

CANTO XIII
The Violent against
themselves
Circle 7 – Middle Ring
Middle ring –
In this ring are the
suicides, who are
transformed into
gnarled thorny
bushes and trees.
*The trees are a
metaphor; In life the
only way of the relief
of suffering was
through pain
(suicide)

CANTO XIV-XVII
The Violent against GOD, Nature
and Art
Circle 7 – Inner Ring
Inner ring –
All reside in a desert
of flaming sand with
fiery flakes raining
from the sky.
Violent against:
GOD – blasphemers,
Nature –Sodomites;
Art – Usurers
Latini

CANTO XVIII The Fraudulent
Circle 8
Finally, Dante and
Virgil ready
themselves to
cross to the eighth
circle. Dante, at
Virgil’s command,
summons the beast
Geryon from the
depths with a cord
wrapped around
his waist.
-Geryon, symbol of
deceitGeryon
Virgil stays to talk
with the beast while
urging Dante to look
at the last of the
Violent sinners.
When Dante comes
back, they mount
Geryon and ride the
beast during the
descent into the
eighth circle.

CANTO XVIII The Fraudulent
Circle 8
The eighth circle
contains ten pouches,
each containing
different types of
sinners.
Dante’s Inferno
Trench V: Barrators
Trench VII: Theives
Circle 9: Traitors
Region 1: Kindred
Region 2: Country
Region 3: Guests
Region 4: Lords

CANTO XVIII
The Fraudulent Circle 8
Panderers and Seducers walk
in separate line in opposite
direction, whipped by demons.
Flatterers are steeped in
human excrement.

CANTO XIX-XX The Fraudulent - Circle 8
Simoniacs -Those who
committed simony are place
head first in holes in the rock,
with flames burning on the
soles of their feet.
Sorcerers and false prophets-
they have their heads twisted
around on their bodies
backward, so they can only see
what is behind them and not in
the future.

CANTO XXI-XXIII
The Fraudulent
Circle 8
Trench VII: Theives
Corrupt politicians( barrators)
are immersed in a lake of
boiling pitch, guarded by
devils, the Malebranche
Hypocrites listlessly walking
along wearing gold-gilded lead
cloaks.
lol

CANTO XXIV-XXVII
The Fraudulent Circle 8
Trench VII: Theives
Thieves are bitten by snakes.
Snakes bites make them
undergo various
transformations and some
resrrected after being turned
to ashes.
Evil counsellors are
encased in individual
flames
*They’re watching the flaming spirits
of Oddyseus and Diomedes
(Trojan War)

CANTO XXVII-XXXI The Fraudulent Circle 8
A sword-wieldded
devil hacks at the
sowers of discord.
As their wounds heal,
the devil will tear their
bodies again.
Groups of various sort of
falsifiers are afflicted with
different types of
diseases.
The severed
head of
Bertrand de
Born speaks
to Dante

CANTO XXVII-XXXI The Fraudulent
Circle 8
As they leave,
Virgil points out the
sinning giants who
are immobilized
around them in
punishment.

CANTO XXVII-XXXI The Fraudulent
Circle 8
Nimrod of the giants
Nimrod—who was
responsible for building
the Tower of Babel—has
lost the ability to speak
coherently. His words
are gibberish.
Virgil requests that one
of the unbound giants,
Antaneus, transport
them in the palm of his
hand down to the last
circle of Hell. He
complies.
The giant Antaeus lowers Dante and Virgil into the last circle
Nimrod
Antaneus

CANTO XXXIII The Traitors
Circle 9
The ninth circle of Hell,
where traitors are
punished, contains four
different zones.
Dante’s Inferno
Trench V: Barrators
Trench VII: Theives
Circle 9: Traitors
Region 1: Kindred
Region 2: Country
Region 3: Guests
Region 4: Lords

Circle 9
Traitors, distinguished
from the “merely”
fraudulent in that their
acts involve betraying
one in a special
relationship to the
betrayer, are frozen in a
lake of ice known as
Cocytus.
The traitors frozen in the ice of Cocytus

Circle 9 – The Four Concentric Zones of 9th Circle
Traitors to their Kindred
REGION 1:
Caïna
Named for Cain, is home to
traitors to their kindered.
REGION 2:
Antenora
Is name for Antenor
of troy,who betrayed
his city to the Greeks.
REGION 3:
Ptolomæa
Is probably named
for Ptolemy, the
captain of Jericho ,
He killed Simon
Maccabaeus and his
sons.
REGION 4:
Judecca
Is named for Judas
the Iscariot, Biblical
betrayer of Christ, is
for traitor to their
Lords.
Traitors to their Country Traitors to their Guests Traitors to their Lords

Circle 9 – REGION 1:Caïna
REGION 1:Caïna
The souls here are
immersed in the ice up
to their necks.
Dante addresses the traitor Bocca degli Abati
Bocca degli Abati

Circle 9 – REGION 2:Antenora
REGION 2: Antenora
The souls here are
immersed the same
level as those in Caïna,
except they are unable
to bend their necks.
Ugolino gnaws upon the head of Archbishop Ruggieri
Archbishop Ruggierir
Ugolino

Circle 9 – REGION 3:Ptolomæa
REGION 3:Ptolomæa
Where traitors against
their guests suffer,
immobilized in ice and
their tears frozen
against their eyes.
As they cry, their tears freeze and seal their eyes shut – they are denied even comfort of tears.

Circle 9 – REGION 4:Judecca
REGION 4:Judecca
In the fourth the final
zone, Judecca, where
traitors against their
benefactors are
punished, Dante
witnesses the king of
Hell, the three-headed
Lucifer, giant and frozen
at the core. In his three
mouths, Lucifer
mechanically chews on
the most evil mortal
sinners—Judas, Brutus,
and Cassius.
Lucifer, king of Hell, frozen in the ice

• Having survived the
depths of Hell, Dante
and Virgil ascend out
of the undergloom, to
the Mountain
of Purgatory on the far
side of the world.

Beatrice, Dante's ideal
woman, guides him
through PURGATORY.
Beatrice was a Florentine
woman whom he had met
in childhood and admired
from afar in the mode of
the then-
fashionable courtly love
tradition which is
highlighted in Dante's
earlier work La Vita
Nuova.

THE TERRACES OF PURGATORIO
LATE-REPENTANT
PROUD
ENVIOUS
WRATHFUL
SLOTHFUL
AVARICIOUS
GLUTTONOUS
LUSTFUL

ANTE-PURGATORY
(LATE-REPENTANT)
•This is the level where the late-repentants stay.
•These sinners stay in purgatory until the
prayers of their loved ones shorten their stay
there.

FIRST TERRACE
(PROUD)
•Those who are proud are being punished in this
level.
•The proud are purged by carrying giant stones
on their backs, unable to stand up straight

SECOND TERRACE
(ENVIOUS)
•Those who are envious are being punished in
this level.
•The envious are purged by having their eyes
sewn shut and wearing clothing that makes the
soul indistinguishable from the ground

THIRD TERRACE
(WRATHFUL)
• Those who are wrathful are being punished in this level.
• The wrathful are purged by walking around in acrid smoke

FOURTH TERRACE
(SLOTHFUL)
• Those who are slothful are being punished in this level.
• The slothful are purged by continually running

FIFTH TERRACE
(AVARICIOUS)
• Those who sinned on the fifth through seventh terraces
are those who loved good things but loving them in a
disordered way.
• Those who are avaricious and prodigal are being
punished in this level.
• The avaricious and prodigal are purged by lying face-
down on the ground, unable to move

SIXTH TERRACE
(GLUTTONOUS)
• Those who are gluttonous are being punished in this
level.
• The gluttonous are purged by abstaining from any food
or drink

SEVENTH TERRACE
(LUSTFUL)
• Those who are lustful are being punished in this level.
• The lustful are purged by burning in an immense wall of
flame

•Dante, under the guidance of Beatrice,
completes his journey to the afterlife by leaving
the earth and rising through the ten celestial
heavens of the ancient cosmos. Paradiso
narrates how Dante and Beatrice encounter
blessed spirits in the seven planetary spheres.
In describing the heavens, Dante is going beyond
previous poets, driven by intellect (Minerva),
steered by divine creativity (Apollo), and guided by
poetic inspiration (The Muses).

The System of
Dante's Paradise

Moon
The sphere is that of faith, the content of faith,
taken on trust that will be revealed, realised,
self-evidently as “truth.”
The spirits in the moon is also associated in our
culture with woman, with the virginity and
chastity of Diana.
Spirits are those who failed in the aspect of faith
by breaking their vows.

Mercury
• Justinian and the hope of the Roman Empire
• refers to the justice of the sin of the Fall of
Man.
• Mercury is filled with spirits who hoped for
earthly fame and honor, so they impaired the
force of their spiritual hope.
• The spirits are satisfied because reward is
matched with merit and they are free of envy.

VENUS
• Still in the heaven of Venus, Dante speaks first with
Cunizza, the mistress of the troubadour poet, Sordello,
and sister of the tyrant, Ezzelino da Romano, and
secondly with Foulquet of Marseilles, a troubadour poet,
renowned as much for his amours as for his poetry. The
discourse of both souls is concerned with affairs on earth,
Cunizza foretelling the disasters which will befall the
inhabitants of the Trevisan territory, and Foulquet
deploring the avarice of the Church and her neglect of true
religion. Both spirits rejoice in the degree of bliss to which
God has destined them; the love in which they erred in
their first life is now discerned by them as the power
by which the universe is governed.

SUN
• The spirits are manifested who reconciled spiritual and earthly
wisdom; pagan and Christian learning and history, and directed
the virtuous Christian life on Earth.

MARS
Signifies the virtue of Fortitude.
• The red planet carries traditional associations of blood
and war in myth and astrology; but in here, it represents the
associations of the Church Militant and of the Crucifixion.
• The Spirits are those of the warriors of God; those who
fought for the Chosen People of the old law (Old Testament),
and of Christ’s Church in the new (New Testament).

JUPITER
• It is associated with Justice and Wisdom, with Jupiter
the Roman God, and therefore with the Roman
Emperors, and with the Christian God.
• The head and neck of an Eagle
• 1. The emblem of Rome
• 2. The divine sign of Empire and justice
• The mind of God inspires the earthly forms, the nests
where intellect builds and creates justice.

SATURN
• The contemplative spiritual life of an individual and the
fourth cardinal virtue of Temperance
• Is also a reminder of the Golden Age when in myth, Saturn
ruled the Earth; a time of simplicity, moderation and primal
innocence.

FIXED STARS
• Love, in all its forms, reads to him, is Divine Love, The
good God, Himself. Love is one continuum, from the
divine to the earthly. All love is one.

Dante will be examined by the Apostles who stand at the threshold
to the Primum Mobile, concerning his understanding of the
theological virtues:
Saint Peter
• Faith
Saint James
• Hope
Saint John
• Love

The Primum Mobile/ Crystalline
The Angelic Circles
-There is a spiritual
rather than a spatial
correspondence
between the two
arrangements.
Concentric Sphere
-Centered on Earth
Concentric Angelic
-Orders
Centered on God

The Empyrean
• Here, Dante had seen the redeemed spirits and the
angels in their form of the Last Judgment.
• The Emyprean is the full Light of Truth which is filled
with Divine Love. That love is full of transcendent joy
coming from the Supreme God, the essence of Love.
• The Angels fly among the redeemed, in the form of a
white rose, and God. Angels’ faces are flame, their
wings golden and the rest, white: the three colors that
symbolize Love, Knowledge and Purity.

Divine comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)

Divine comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)

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