Divina Comedia:

Inferno
( After Dante Alighieri )

Executed by: Chicot Anastasia , 1LM2

group

Contents:

Notions;
Dantes Biography:
1.Life
2.Works
Divina Comedia or Divina Comedy;
The 1st book: Inferno:
Questions
Biography

1.Summary
2.Structure
3.Symbols

Notions

canticas =Italian pluralcantiche;

Lust=often confused with love, it is purely physical attraction and has no lasting effect ;

profligates- who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained;

Flattery(also calledadulationorblandishment) is the act of giving excessive

compliments, generally for the purpose of ingratiating oneself with the subject.

Simony(/sa.m.ni/or/s.m.ni/) is the act of selling church offices and roles.

Cerberusis often called the "hound ofHades", is a monstrousmulti-headeddog, who

guards the gates of theunderworld, preventing the dead from leaving.

Gluttony derived from theLatingluttire-means to gulp down or swallow, means overindulgenceandover-consumptionoffood,drink, or wealth items to the point
ofextravaganceor waste.

Whenheresyis used today with reference to Christianity, it denotes the formal denial or
doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faithas defined by one or more of the
Christian churches.

Dante Alighieri
Dante was born inFlorence, Italy. The
exact date of his birth is unknown,
although it is generally believed to be
on 14th may ,1265.
The poet's mother -Bella, died when
Dante was not yet ten years old, and
Alighiero ( his father) soon married
again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi.
But by this time Dante had fallen in
love with another girlBeatrice Portinari,whom he first met
when he was only nine.
The exact date of his marriage is not
known: the only certain information is
that, before his exile in 1301, he had
three children (Pietro, Jacopo and

Not much is known about Dante's

education; he presumably studied at
home or in a chapter school
attached to a church or monastery
in Florence. It is known that he
studiedTuscanpoetry and that he
admired the compositions of the
Bolognese poetGuido Guinizelli,
Aristotel, Toma dAquino , Virgilio
and others.
Dante is punished and exiled from
Florence, so he spent his life in
Verona, Paris and Ravenna.
Dante Alighieri died at the age of 56
on 23rd of April in Ravenna, Italy.

Dantes works:

Convivio("The Banquet") and is a collection of his longest poems

with an (unfinished) allegorical commentary;

Monarchia,a summary treatise of political philosophy in Latin

which was condemned and burned after Dante's death by the Papal
LegateBertrando del Poggetto, which argues for the necessity of a
universal or global monarchy in order to establish universal peace in
this life.

De vulgari eloquentia

("On the Eloquence of

Vernacular"),
on vernacular literature, partly inspired by theRazos de
trobarof Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun;

La Vita Nuova("The New Life"),the story of his love for

Beatrice Portinari, who also served as the ultimate symbol of
salvation in theComedy.TheVita Nuovacontains many of
Dante's love poems in Tuscan, which was not unprecedented;
the vernacular had been regularly used for lyric works before,
during all the thirteenth century.

Divina Comedia or Divine Comedy

The first printed edition to add the worddivinato
the title was that of the Venetianhumanist
Lodovico Dolce,published in 1555 byGabriele
Giolito de' Ferrari.

TheDivine Comedy is anepic poemby

Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and
completed 1320, a year before authors
death in 1321.

The poem's imaginative vision of theafterlife

TheDivine Comedyis composed of 14,233 lines
is representative of themedieval world-view
that are divided into threecanticas-Inferno(Hell
.
),Purgatorio(Purgatory), andParadiso(Paradise)
It helped to establish theTuscan language, in
each consisting of 33cantos(Italian pluralcanti).
which it is written, as the standardized
Italian language.
Written in the first person, the poem tells of
Dante's journey through the three realms of the
It is divided into three parts:Inferno,
dead, lasting fromthe night beforeGood Fridayto
Purgatorio, andParadiso.
the Wednesday afterEasterin the spring of 1300.
The work was originally simply

titledComedaand the wordDivinawas

added by
Giovanni Boccaccio later.

The Roman poetVirgilguides him through Hell and

Purgatory;Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, guides
him through Heaven.

1st part: Inferno

The poem starts onMaundy Thursdayin the year 1300

when the narrator, Dante himself, is thirty-five years old,
and thus "halfway along our life's path.
The poet finds himself lost in a darkwoodin front of a
mountain, assailed by three beasts (alion, a leopard
and ashe-wolf) he cannot evade.
Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling
into a "low place" (basso loco) where the sun is silent ('l
sol tace), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, have been
sent byBeatrice, and the two of them begin their
journey to the underworld.
Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an
inscription ending with the famous phrase

speranza, voi ch'intrate",

"Lasciate ogne

most frequently translated

1st
circle

Limbo Unbaptizedand
thevirtuous
pagans, who,
although not
sinful, did not
accept Christ
( that all
virtuous nonChristians).

The guiltless damned are

punished by living in a
deficient form of Heaven,
and they lacked the hope
for something greater than
rational minds can
conceive.

2nd
circle

Lust

They are the first ones to

be truly punished in Hell.
These souls are blown back
and forth by the terrible
winds of a violent storm,
without rest. This
symbolizes the power of
lust to blow one about
needlessly and aimlessly.

are those
overcome bylust
(those who
letting their
appetites sway
their reason).

Limbo includes
green fields and
a castle with
seven gates to
represent the
seven virtues.
The castle is
the dwelling
place of the
wisest men of
antiquity,
includingVirgil
himself.

Poets Homer,Horace,Ovid,
andLucan; theAmazon
queenPenthesilea;
the mathematicianEuclid;
the scientist Pedanius
Dioscorides;
the statesmanCicero;
the first doctorHippocrates;
the
philosophersSocrates,Plato,
Aristotle, andAverroes;
the historical figuresLucretia,
Lucius Junius Brutus, andJulius
Caesarin his role asRoman
general ;
Mythological charactersHector,
Electra,Camilla, Latinus,
andOrpheus; Saladin.
Semiramis,Dido,Cleopatra,Hel
en of
Troy,Achilles,Paris,Tristan, and
many others who were
overcome by sexual love during
their life. Dante is told
byFrancesca da Riminihow she
and her husband's brotherPaolo
Malatestacommitted adultery,

6th circle Greed

5th
circle
of the
Hell

Anger

6th
circle

Heresy

7th
circl
e

Violen
ce

Those whose
attitude
toward
material
goods
deviated
from the
appropriate
mean.

The two groups are

guarded by a figure
Dante names
asPluto
eitherPlutothe
classical ruler of the
underworld
orPlutusthe Greek
deity of wealth.

Souls in Hell
are
eternally
fixed in the
state they
have
chosen.

but allegorically, it
reflects Dante's
beginning
awareness of his
own sin.

In the swampy waters of Theavariciousor miserly (including

the riverStyx,
many "clergymen, and popes and
thewrathfulfight each cardinals"),
other on the surface,
who hoarded possessions, and the
and the sullen lie
prodigal, whosquandered them.
gurgling beneath the
water, withdrawn "into a
black sulkiness which
can find no joy in God or
man or the universe.
The lower parts of Hell
Filippo Argenti, aBlack Guelph
are contained within
from a prominent family.
the walls of the city
ofDis. The walls of Dis
are guarded byfallen
angels.

Heretics are Viegil asserts that Dante met a pair of

trapped in
there are only two
Epicurian Florentines in
flaming
legitimate sources
one of the tombs.
tombs.
of wealth: natural
Outer ring:
Outer ring: The murderers
Its
resources
("nature")
and
This
and plunderers
are immersed
entry is
activity
ring houses the human
ina river
of boiling blood and
guarded
violent against ("art").
fire, to a level commensurate
by the
people and
with their sins.
Minotau
property.
Middle ring:The suiciders
r.
Middle ring: In
are
this ring
transformed into gnarled
aresuicides
thorny bushes and trees and

Heretics as Epicureans (who say

"the soul dies with the body")
;Farinata degli Uberti,Ghibelline,
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti,Guido
Outer ring:Dionysius I of
Cavalcanti;
Epicurus,Emperor
Syracuse,Guy de Frederick II,
andPope
Anastasius II.
Montfort,Obizzo
d'Este,Ezzelino III da Romano,
Rinier da Corneto, and Rinier
Pazzo are also seen in the
Phlegethon, as well as
references toAttila the Hun.
Middle ring:Pietro della

8th
circl
e

Fraud

Inner ring: Here

are the violent
against God
(blasphemers) and
the violent against
nature.

Inner ring: the blasphemers lie

on
the sand, the usurers sit, and the
sodomites wander about in groups
in a desert of flaming sand with
fiery flakes raining from the sky

Conscious fraud or
treachery

1st=Panderersandseducers
whipped by demons;
2nd =Flatterers are steeped in
humanexcrement;
3rd=Those who committed simony
are placed head-first in holes in the
rock with flames burning on the
soles of their feet;
4th=Sorcerers,astrologers ,
andfalse prophets here have their
heads twisted around backward on
their bodies;
5th=Corrupt politicians are
immersed in a lake of boilingpitch;
6th=thehypocrites listlessly
walking along wearing heavy,
gilded lead cloaks;
7th=the thieves are pursued and
bitten bysnakesandlizards;
8th=people who used their position
to advise others to engage in
fraud;
9th=a large sword-wielding demon
hacks at the Sowers of Discord,
dividing parts of their bodies as in

Inner ring:Sodom and

Gomorrah, Capaneus, Dante's
mentor,Brunetto Latini, Iacopo
Rusticucci,

There
are 10
Bolgias

1st =Venedico Caccianemico, Jason

2nd=Alessio Interminei of Lucca
andThas
3rd=Pope Nicholas III, Pope
Boniface VIII, Pope Clement V;
4th=KingAmphiaraus,Tiresias and
his daughterManto, the
seersCalchasand Aruns,
astrologersMichael
ScotandGuido Bonatti and the
shoemaker Asdente;
5th=Malacoda
6th=Catalano andLoderingo,
Caiaphas;
7th=Vanni Fucci, Agnello;
8th=Ulysses andDiomedes;
9th=Muhammad, Ali, Gaius
Scribonius Curio, Pompey;
10th=Griffolino d'Arezzo,
Capocchio, Myrrha, Potiphar's
wife.

9th circle of
the Hell

Treacher
y

Round 1is named Cana,

afterCain, who killed his own
brother. Traitors to kindred are
here immersed in the ice up to
their chins.
Round 2is named Antenora,
afterAntenorof Troy, who
according to medieval tradition,
betrayed his city to the Greeks.
Traitors to political entities, such
as parties, cities, or countries,
are located here and imprisoned
in the same way as the traitors
in Cana.
Round 3is named Ptolomaea,
probably afterPtolemy- son
ofAbubus who invitedSimon
Maccabaeus and his sons to a
banquet and then killed
them.Traitors to their guests are
punished here, lying supine in
the ice, which covers them,
except for their faces.
Round 4is named Judecca,
afterJudas Iscariot, Biblical
betrayer of Christ. Here are the
traitors to theirlordsand

The ninth and

last circle is
ringed by
classical and
Biblicalgiants,
who perhaps
symbolize.
There are four
concentric
zones
(or "rounds") of
traitors.

Round 1= The
brothers
Alessandro and
Napoleone degli
Alberti,
Mordred,
Foccaccia,
Sassol
Mascheroni
,Camiscione dei
Pazzi and Bocca
degli Abati.
Round 2=
ArchbishopRug
gieri degli
In the very centre
Ubaldini,
of Hell,
Aeneid.
condemned for
Round3= Fra
committing the

ultimate sin
(personal
treachery against
God), isLucifer.
Lucifer is
described as a
giant, terrifying
beast with three

Alberigo who
had armed
soldiers kill his
brother at a
banquet

Questions

Where and when was Dante Alighieri born?

With whom he felt in love being an adolescent?

What are other Dante Alighieris woks and whom are they dedicated?
What was the initial title of the Dantes work?
Why is Divina Comedia important for Italian culture?
From what parts is Divina Comedia composed?
Who are Dantes guides ?
How the story begins?

How the story ends?

Bibliography:

Inferno, Canto IV, line 36, Mandelbaum translation.

Dorothy L. Sayers,Hell, notes on page 75.

Wallace Fowlie,A Reading of Dante's Inferno, University Of Chicago Press, 1981, pp.
5152.

Alighieri, Dante (1995).Dante's Inferno. Translated by Mark Musa. Indiana University

Press.

Patterson, Victoria."Great Farts in Literature".The Nervous Breakdown.

Wallace Fowlie,A Reading of Dante's Inferno, University Of Chicago Press, 1981, p. 178.

Inferno, Canto XXXII, lines 6162, Mandelbaum translation.

Wallace Fowlie,A Reading of Dante's Inferno, University Of Chicago Press, 1981, p. 224.

Seth Zimmerman (2003).The Inferno of Dante Alighieri . iUniverse.