Dante: The Inferno

The Inferno, the first section of the 14th century poem The Divine Comedy, tells of the passage of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Hell is described as nine circles of suffering, beneath the Earth. Allegorically, the epic grandeur of Dante’s masterpieceThe Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and ultimate rejection of sin. DANTE ALIGHIERI was born in 1265. Considered Italy's greatest poet, his first major work is La Vita Nuova (1292) a tribute to Beatrice Portinari, the great love of his life. His political activism resulted in his exile from Florence to Ravenna. It is believed that The Divine Comedy—consisting of three canticles, The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso—was written between 1308 and 1320. Dante Alighieri died in 1321.


“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.”— T. S. Eliot