Inferno
DARK FOREST/Vestibule of Hell
1. Dante is lost in the dark wood (his sin).
2. Dante loses the “straight way”
3. Three beasts block Dante’s passage – 3 main
divisions of inferno
 Leopard-immoderate desires
 Lion-wrath & pride
 She-wolf-malice & fraud
4. Virgil appears as guide
5. Meets 3 women
 Beatrice
 St. Lucia/ Lucy
 Mary
6. The descent to hell
-Dante sees a group of people (The OpportunistsVestibule of Hell)
-Pope Celestine V or Pontius Pilate –He who made the
great denial
-Charon(fiery-eyed demon) refuses Dante’s passage,
Virgil argues
First Dante and Virgil go through the space outside Hell
in the underworld, where the neutral spirits, who were
neither good nor bad, are left to bewail their fate
neither Heaven nor Hell will accept them. Then they
come to the Acheron, an infernal river, where the
boatman Charon ferries the damned souls into Hell. An
earthquake leaves Dante unconscious
1st CIRCLE (LIMBO)
- Virtuous non-Christians: ancient Greek and Roman
heroes, philosophers
-Aristotle
-not baptized
-no punishment
-Vigil was one of them
*Harrowing of hell –after crucifixion and before
resurrection
*Citadel- castle with 7 wolves
2nd CIRCLE (LUST)
-Minos-Judge of the damned
 punished by having their spirits blown about by
an unceasing wind; strong winds-restlessness
 Met Francesca da’Rimini
 Cleopatra
3 CIRCLE (GLUTTONY)
-Cerberus-3 headed monster who ate gluttons
-Punishment: forced to lie in a vile slush produced by a
never ending icy shower
-Ciacco-hog pig
-“pride, envy and avarice are the 3 living coals
that set the heart on fire”
-prophecied that the Guelphs will defeat and
expel Ghibellines
rd
4th CIRCLE (GREED)
-pass the demon Plutus(guards)
 Avarice
-Greed to wealth
-hoarders
 Prodigal
-spends freely and recklessly
-Punishment: rolled weights around in opposite
directions, berating each other for their sins; jousting
5th CIRCLE (ANGER:WRATHFUL AND SULLEN)
-River of Styx
Punishment: wrathful fought in the muddy water and
the sullen sank beneath it and lamented in gurgling
voices
-rode on the ferry of Phlegyas
-passed Filippo Argentini (tried to attack Dante)
Walls of Dis
-3 sisters/ The Furies (Erinyes)
-Alecto
-Megaera
-Tisiphone
-fallen angels (demons) fall from the sky
6th CIRCLE (HERETICS)
-did not believe in eternal life
-help from divine messenger
Punishment: imprisoned in red-hot sepulchers;
tormented in fiery tombs
-Dante spoke with Farinata, a great-hearted Epicurean
who predicted Dante's exile from Florence. He also met
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, the father of his friend Guido.
7th CIRCLE (VIOLENCE)
1st ring- against others; tyrants and murderers
-passed the Minotaur and met a group of
centaurs, who shot the sinners who tried to escape with
their arrows
-Punishment: tormented in a river of boiling
blood: the Phlegethon.
-Alexander the great
-Atilla the hun
-Guy de Montfort
nd
2 ring- against self; suicides
-black forest full of twisted trees
-Pier della Vigna
-Punishment: turn into trees and pecked by
harpies
3rd ring- nature, God, art
-blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers.
-Punishment: sit or walk around on flaming
sand under a rain of fire
-Ser Brunetto de Latini (sodomite)
8th CIRCLE (FRAUD)
-Geryon-symbolized fraud
-Malebolge
1. Pimps (Panderers and seducers- fraud in matters of
love)
-naked sinners being whipped by demons
- Venedico Caccianemico
-Jason
2. Flatterers
-mired in a stew of human excrement
-Thais
-Alessio Interminelli da Lucca
3. Simoniacs/Simonists
-Punishment: stuck upside down in rock with their feet
on fire
- Pope Nicholas III
-Boniface Clement V
-position in church for personal monetary gain
4. Diviners, astrologers, magicians
-Punishment: heads are turned backwards
-trying to foretell the future.
5. Barrators
-Punishment: flung into a lake of hot pitch, and were
guarded by devils, the Malebranche; demons tear them
apart
-accepted bribes
 Malacoda- head demon
 Scarmiglione
 Barbariccia-vulgar comedians
6. Hypocrites
-Punishment: Heavy lead robes
-Jovial Friars
7. Thieves
-Punishment: bitten by serpents, and then transformed
into serpents
8. Deceivers
-Guido da Montefeltro
9. Discord and scandal
-Punishment: wounded; maimed by a devil with a
sword
10. Falsifiers
-Punishment: plagued by a disease like leprosy
- Gianni Schicci and Myrrha.
9th CIRCLE (TREACHERY)
-The giants and titan
-Nimrod (ruler of Babylon)
-Punishment: fixed on the ice for eternity and
positioned according to gravity of guilt
1st RING: CAINA
-treacherous to kin
-heads and necks are out of the ice, bow their
heads
-Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti
2nd RING: ANTENORA
-against country,homeland
-heads are out of the ice, cannot move
-Bocca
3rd RING: PTOLOMEA
-against guests and hosts
-half their faces are out of the ice, tears freeze
-Friar Albeligo
4th RING: JUDECCA
-to masters
-completely in ice
Bottom of hell:
gigantic figure of Lucifer, who ground up
Judas(middle, red, betrayed Jesus Christ),
Brutus(left, black, betrayed Julius Ceasar), and
Cassius(right, white and bile, betrayed Julius
Ceasar) in his three mouths. Virgil and Dante
climbed on Lucifer.