Dante's Inferno

Satan is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 34.

The Inferno is the first of the three cantiche in Dante's poetic work, The Divine Comedy, about his imagined trip to Hell ('Inferno' is the Italian word for 'Hell'). It is very frightening. According to Dante, the inscription at the entrance to Hell reads "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

The Divine Comedy was most famously illustrated by Gustave Doré, whose very literal interpretations of the punishments sinners suffer in Hell are truly horrifying.

Structure of Hell

Dante's vision of Hell is a very ordered one. Hell is an enormous conical pit that leads down to the centre of the Earth. Within the pit are nine circles of decreasing size, where those condemned to Hell are punished. Every kind of sin has its own allotted place, either an entire circle or, lower down, a subdivision of a circle.

The gate of Hell

At the gate of Hell there is an inscription, famously ending 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here', because those condemned to Hell have lost their chance of salvation for good. Beyond the gate is the river Acheron, the first of four rivers in Hell. As in classical mythology, a ferryman carries the souls of the dead across the river. Gathered on the near bank are the Futile, souls of the dead who did nothing remarkable in their lives and are condemned to be forgotten.

Limbo

The first circle of Hell is Limbo, home to those who led good lives but were not Christians, so cannot enter Heaven. Although it is in Hell, Limbo is relatively pleasant - the only punishment is disappointment and regret.

The lesser circles

The next four circles punish sins of weakness, as follows:

Circle	Sin	Punishment
Second	Lust	Wind
Third	Gluttony	Rain
Fourth	Greed (spending and hoarding)	Pushing boulders around
Fifth	Anger	Submerged in a marsh

The marsh in the fifth circle is the river Styx. Dante and his guide must again be ferried across to continue their journey.

The City of Dis

The four lower circles of Hell are inside a walled city called Dis. From outside the city looks like a bustling metropolis of evil, but inside it is revealed to be an eerie and deserted graveyard. This is the sixth circle of Hell, where heretics are buried in tombs and set on fire.

The seventh circle: Violence

The seventh circle is split into three regions, where different forms of violence are punished:

• Violence against others, including tyranny, is punished in Phlegethon, the river of fire. This river runs right round the outer edge of the seventh circle and then down towards the center of the pit.
• Violence against oneself. On the inner bank of Phlegethon is a wood, where the trees turn out to be suicides who have been condemned to give up their human form. Wanton spendthrifts are also punished here, pursued through the wood by beasts.
• Violence against God or nature. This category includes blasphemers, usurers and homosexuals. All are punished in a desert of unbearable heat where fire rains from the sky.

The only way to cross the desert is to walk along the dykes that guide the river Phlegethon towards the center of Hell. Beyond the desert, this river flows down a sheer drop into the eighth circle.

The eighth circle: Fraud

The eighth circle is home to those guilty of different forms of fraud:

Fraudulent crime	Punishment
Seduction	Forced marching and whipping
Flattery	Buried in filth
Simony (selling holy offices for profit)	Stuck in wells and set on fire
Sorcery and soothsaying	Heads twisted backwards
Stirring up lawsuits	Immersed in boiling tar
Hypocrisy	Crushed under lead cloaks
Theft	Turned into lizards
Evil counsel	Fire
Sundering	Mutilated by demons
Lying and forgery	Disease

These crimes are known as minor fraud, as distinct from treachery (see below), which is considered a worse form of fraud.

The ninth circle: Treachery

The ninth and lowest circle, situated at the bottom of a deep well leading down to the center of the earth, is set aside for traitors. The circle takes the form of a frozen lake called Cocytus, and the traitors are frozen into the ice. Some have their heads free, while others are completely covered, according to the severity of their treachery.

In the ultimate depths of this circle, the travelers come upon Satan and the three worst human offenders:

• Judas Iscariot
• Brutus
• Cassius

Satan is depicted as a three-headed, winged demon of immense size, yet at the same time he is a pathetic figure: he is unable to move except to beat his wings ineffectually, and he cries constantly. The three worst traitors are punished by being chewed by Satan himself, and Judas, as the worst of all, is also lacerated by Satan's claws.

In Dante’s time, Julius Caesar was honored as the first emperor of Rome, and Rome brought the ‘Pax Romana’.

In Popular Culture

A 2002 best-selling mystery novel by Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club, is a piece of historical fiction set in Boston in 1865. It is based partly on real events; the Dante Club was real, the mystery story is not. At the time, not many people in the United States knew Italian or Dante's work. A group of writers formed a club to translate Dante's work and promote his importance. Three of them were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. Like Dante's work itself, it has frightening and gruesome scenes, but is rich in historical background.