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Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for 'Hell') is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century narrative poem The Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso . The Inferno describes the journey of a fictionalised version of Dante himself through Hell , guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil .
Inferno depicts a vision of hell divided into nine concentric circles, each home to souls guilty of a particular class of sin. [2] Led by his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, Dante enters the second circle of hell in Inferno 's Canto V. Before entering the circle proper they encounter Minos, the mythological king of the Minoan civilization.
Inferno depicts a vision of hell divided into nine concentric circles, each home to souls guilty of a particular class of sin. [3] Led by his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, Dante enters the first circle of hell in Inferno 's Canto IV. The first circle is Limbo, the resting place of souls who "never sinned" but whose "merit falls far short". [4]
Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino, painted c. 1530. The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three cantiche (singular cantica) – Inferno (), Purgatorio (), and Paradiso () – each consisting of 33 cantos (Italian plural canti).
In his lectures Galileo suggested that many commonly accepted dimensions did not stand up to mathematical scrutiny. Using complex geometrical analysis, Galileo calculated that Vellutello's description of the hell's structure, such as the massive cylinders descending to the center of the Earth, would, in reality, collapse under their own weight.
Dante's Satan remains a common image in popular portrayals. The answer to the question of how Satan wound up in the bottom of the pit in Dante's Inferno lies in Christian theological history. Some interpretations of the Book of Isaiah, combined with apocryphal texts, explain that Satan was cast from Heaven, and fell to earth. [5]
Dante is depicted (bottom, centre) in Andrea di Bonaiuto's 1365 fresco Church Militant and Triumphant in the Santa Maria Novella church, Florence. In 1373, a little more than half a century after Dante's death, the Florentine authorities softened their attitude to him and decided to establish a department for the study of the Divine Comedy.
Cerberus in the third circle of hell, as depicted by William Blake. The presence of Cerberus in the third circle of hell is another instance of an ancient Greek mythological figure adapted and intensified by Dante; as with Charon and Minos in previous cantos, Cerberus is a figure associated with the Greek underworld in the works of Virgil and Ovid who has been repurposed for its appearance in ...