INFERNO
By Dante Alighieri
LIFE AND TIMES
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Dante was born in 1265 in
Florence.
At the age of 9 he met for the
first time the eight-year-old
Beatrice Portinari, who became
in effect his Muse, and remained,
after her death in 1290, the
central inspiration for his major
poems.
1285: he married and began a
family
1302: when he was exiled from
Florence, he was active in the
cultural and civic life of Florence,
served as a soldier and held
several political offices.
The GUELFS and the GHIBELLINES
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Competed for control of Florence
The Guelfs, with whom Dante was allied, were identified with
Florentine political autonomy (independence or freedom)
The Ghibellines supported the Hohenstaufen emperors
1268: the Guelfs became the dominant force in Florence, by
the end of the century, the Guelfs became divided (grounded
in family and economic interests), became the “Whites” and
“Blacks”
The GUELFS and the GHIBELLINES
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1301: conflict arose between the Blacks (the faction most
strongly committed to Guelf and papal interests) and the
more moderate Whites, Pope Boniface VIII instigated a
partisan settlement which allowed the Blacks to exile the
White leadership, of whom Dante was one
Dante never returned to Florence, and played no further
role in public life, but remained passionately interested in
Italian politics
During the next twenty years Dante lived in several Italian
cities
1319: he moved from Verona to Ravenna, where he
completed the Paradiso, and where he died in 1321
INFERNO by DANTE ALIGHIERI
Inferno is part of an epic
poem
 There are 3 parts to the epic,
The Divine Comedy: Inferno,
Purgatorio, and Paradisio
 Tells the story of Dante’s
journey through Hell, guided
by the Roman poet, Virgil
(narrated by Dante)
 Shades: souls residing in Hell
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CIRCLE I (LIMBO) ~ THE
UNBAPTISED, VIRTUOUS PAGANS
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Geography: green fields, ground is firm, grassy and
pleasant, air is clean and fresh
Sin: all of the people in Limbo are virtuous and sinless, but
who for the lack of a single ceremony cannot be admitted
into Paradise
Punishment: loss of Hope; they must exist in desire for the
glory of God (often a God who they do not believe in),
without ever being able to attain it
Figures: Virgil, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Caesar, Lucretia,
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Thales, Heraclitus,
Euclid, Hector, Aeneas, Epictatus, Ptolemy, and
Hippocrates, great thinkers, classic poets, great men
CIRCLE II ~ THE LUSTFUL
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Geography: there is an eternal storm
Sin: excess of sexual passion, those souls who in life made
pleasure their hope, with reason and love of God second
Punishment: infernal storm that lashes at them in darkness
with rage and punishment, spinning through the air, blown
about in pairs, they cry out lamentations and insults to God
as they go, standing on the ground in the Second Circle
are unsuccessful lovers attempting to be caught up by the
winds of passion.
Figures: Semiramis, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris, Tristan
MINOS
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Minos wraps his long tail around the
body of the sinner. The number of
times is equal to the soul's assigned
level (circle) of Hell.
CIRCLE III ~ THE GLUTTONOUS
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Geography: mixture of stinking snow and freezing rain,
which forms into a vile slush underfoot; a winding, dangerous
trail leads down the precipice to the Fourth Circle.
Sin: wallow in food and drink, produce nothing but garbage
and offal (rubbish)
Punishment: lie half-buried in the icy paste, swollen and
exposed, and Cerberus, the ravenous three-headed dog of
Hell, stands guard over them, ripping and tearing them with
his claws and teeth
Figures: allusions to Last Judgement and Florentine politics,
Ciacco (unknown reference)
CIRCLE IV ~ AVARICE AND
PRODIGALITY
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Geography: a flat plain of hard-baked clay
Sin: greed/lust for material gain, spending too
freely
Punishment: the sinners are divided into two raging
mobs, each bearing a great boulder-like weight, two
mobs meet clashing their weights against one
another, after meeting the mobs separate, pushing
the great weights apart, and begin all over again,
insult each other in the process
Figures: monks and church leaders (cardinals and
popes)
CIRCLE V ~ WRATH AND
SULLENESS
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Geography: stinking swamp covered by thick fog, river
Styx
Sin: anger that is expressed, and anger that is
repressed
Punishment: partially submerged in the filthy river Styx,
the wrathful ruthlessly attack themselves and one
another, the sullen stew below the surface of the
muddy swamp
Figures: Phlegyas (set fire to the temple of Apollo
because the god had raped his daughter), Filippo
Argenti (Dante's natural political enemy), 3 Furies,
Medusa
THE RIVER STYX
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The Styx is a body of water--a marsh or river-in the classical underworld. Charon ferries souls
of the dead. The Styx, according to Dante's
design, is a vast swamp encompassing the fifth
circle of hell, in which the wrathful and sullen
are punished. It also serves a practical purpose
in the journey when Dante and Virgil are taken
by Phlegyas--in his swift vessel--across the
marsh to the city of Dis.
THE CITY OF DIS
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Dante designates all of lower hell-circles 6 through 9, where more
serious sins are punished--as the
walled city of Dis. For Dante, Dis
stands both for Lucifer and the lower
circles of his infernal realm. Details
of the city and its surroundings
include moats, watch towers, high
walls, and a well guarded entrance.
CIRCLE VI ~ HERETICS
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Geography: a huge cemetery filled with open tombs with
fire coming out of them
Sin: the denial of the soul's immortality, a product of bitter
disputes over Christian doctrine (understanding the Trinity
and Christ)
Punishment: souls eternally tormented in fiery tombs
Figures: Farinata (a Florentine leader of the Ghibellines),
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti (member of a rich and
powerful Guelph family), Guido Cavalcanti (Dante's best
friend), Epicurus (Greek philosopher), Frederick II (the last
in the line of reigning Holy Roman Emperors), Guelphs and
Ghibellines
CIRCLE VII (RING 1) ~
VIOLENCE
Geography: divided into three rings (1st: a river of
blood)
 Sin: violence against others (murderers/bandits)
 Punishment: souls submerged in a river of boiling
blood, depth determined by the severity of the sin
 Figures: Minotaur (man's head and bull's body or
reversed), Centaurs (men from the waist up with
lower bodies of horses) guard the first ring
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CIRCLE VII (RING 2) ~
VIOLENCE
Geography: 2nd: horrid forest
 Sin: violence against self (suicide)
 Punishment: punished by Harpies (foul creatures
with the head of a woman and body of a bird),
they are perched in the suicide-trees, whose leaves
they tear and eat--thus producing both pain and
an outlet for the accompanying laments of the souls
 Figures: Harpies, Pier della Vigna (was an
accomplished poet, killed himself by smashing his
head into a wall)
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CIRCLE VII (RING 3)~
VIOLENCE
Geography: , 3rd: inside the other , barren plain of
sand ignited by flakes of fire
 Sin: violence against god and nature
(blasphemers/sodomites/usurers – obtaining money
in God’s name for a selfish purpose)
 Punishment: souls eternally tormented in fiery tombs
 Figures: Capaneus (huge and powerful warrior-king
who virtually embodied defiance against his
highest god), Brunetto Latini (a prominent Guelph
who spent many years living in exile, sodomite)
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THE RIVER PHLEGETHON
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“River or fire”
Overflow of river of blood in
Circle I
Geryon: has an honest face, a
colorful and intricately
patterned reptilian hide, hairy
paws, and a scorpion's tail,
Geryon is an image of fraud the realm to which he transports
Dante and Virgil (Circles 8 and
9).
CIRCLE VIII (MALEBOLGE) ~
FRAUD
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Geography: divided into ten gulfs, each with varying geography
Sins and Punishments:
Panderers and Seducers - scourged/lashed by demons
Flatterers - remain immersed in filth
Simonists (profiting on sacred objects) - submerged in apertures with only their feet sticking
up, the soles of their feet are covered in flames
Diviners, Astrologers, and Magicians - faces are reversed so they are forced to walk
backwards
Barrators or Public Peculators (fraud/theft/embezzlement of public or company funds) plunged in a lake of boiling pitch guarded by demons
Hypocrites - pace continuously around the gulf under the pressure of caps and hoods that
are gilt on the outside and leaden within
Thieves and Robbers - tormented by venomous and pestilent serpents
Evil counselors - engulfed in flames
Sowers of Scandal and Discord (Dispute) - limbs are maimed or divided in different ways
Falsifiers (Alchemists/Forgers) – each soul is plagued with a disease or physical deformity
CIRCLE VIII (MALEBOLGE) ~
FRAUD
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Guardians/Demons: Geryon, demons (1st and 5th), serpents,
Cacus (angry centaur to punish Fucci)
Figures: Pope Nicholas the Fifth, Amphiaraus, Tiresias, Aruns,
Manto, Catalano and Loderingo (knights of St. Mary), Vanni
Fucci (black Guelph who pillaged church of St. James),
Diomede and Ulysses (Greek heroes from the war of Troy),
Count Guido da Montefeltro (Italian figure from Dante’s time),
Mohammed (founder of Islam), Piero da Medicina, Curio,
Mosca, Bertrand de Born (allegedly instigated a rift between
King Henry II of England and his son, Bertran is now himself
physically divided: he carries his decapitated head, which-though separated from the body, inexplicably manages to
speak), Grifolino of Arezzo, Capocchio of Siena, Sinon of Troy,
Adamo of Brescia
THE WELL OF GIANTS
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The giants encompass/guard the outer ring of the ninth circle.
The Giants physically connect circles 8 and 9: standing on the floor
of circle 9, the upper halves of their huge bodies tower over the
inner edge of circle 8. From a distance, Dante initially mistakes the
Giants for actual towers.
Nimrod: described in the Bible as a "stout hunter before the Lord"
(Genesis 10:9)
Ephialtes: one of the Giants who fought against Jove and the other
Olympian gods
Antaeus: drawn from classical Greek tradition, lifts and places
Dante and Virgil in the 9th circle
CIRCLE IX ~ TRAITORS
Geography: four circles (Caina, Antenora,
Ptolomea, Judecca) each inside the next;
surrounded by giants; near center of Hell;
Dante calls circle 9, a frozen lake, Cocytus
(from Greek, meaning "to lament")
 Sin: treachery - defined in Inferno as
fraudulent acts between individuals who
share special bonds of love and trust
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CAINA
Sin: traitors to kin
 Punishment: immersed face down in the ice
 Figures: Camiccione de’ Pazzi, Francesca
identified her husband (Gianciotto)--who
murdered her and Paolo (Gianciotto's
brother)--as a future inhabitant of Caina, two
brothers, the Ghibelline Napoleone and the
Guelph Alessandro, who murdered one
another because of a dispute over their
inheritance
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ANTENORA
Sin: traitors to their country
 Punishment: gnawing on each other
 Figures: Bocca degli Abbati (a Ghilibene by
practice, Bocca pretended to fight on the side
of the Guelphs, and betrayed his Guelph
countrymen at a decisive moment in the battle),
Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi is chewing on
Archbishop Ruggeri’s head
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PTOLOMEA
Sin: traitors to their guests
 Punishment: their souls descend immediately to
hell and their living bodies are possessed by
demons when they commit these acts; head up
in ice with eyes frozen
 Figures: Friar Alberigo de’ Manfredi, Fra
Alberigo
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JUDECCA
Sin: traitors to their benefactors (region named
after Judas Iscariot)
 Punishment: their souls are completely frozen in
ice and locked in various postures with no mobility
or sound whatsoever; exception for Judas, Brutus,
and Cassius
 Figures: Judas, Brutus, and Cassius are all in the
mouths of Lucifer (Brutus/Cassius feet first, Judas
head first)
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LUCIFER
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Lucifer, Satan, Dis, Beelzebub--Dante
throws every name in the book at the
Devil, once the most beautiful angel
(Lucifer means "light-bearer")
Lucifer is the wretched emperor of hell
His flapping wings generate the wind
that keeps the lake frozen and his three
mouths chew on the shade-bodies of
three arch-traitors, the gore mixing with
tears gushing from Lucifer's three sets of
eyes
Lucifer's three faces--each a different color (red, whitish-yellow, black)-parody the doctrine of the Trinity: three complete persons (Father, Son,
Holy Spirit) in one divine nature--the Divine Power, Highest Wisdom,
and Primal Love that created the Gate of Hell
EXIT FROM HELL
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After Dante and Virgil
have passed through
the center of the earth,
their perspective
changes and Lucifer
appears upside-down,
with his legs sticking up
in the air.
SOURCES
http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/index2.html
Alighieri, Dante. (2003). The Inferno. (Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, Trans.). New York, NY: Barnes and Noble
Classics. (Original work published in 1308).