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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 .
The film Dante's Inferno (2007) is based on Sandow Birk's contemporary drawings of the Divine Comedy. The film accurately retells the original story, but with the addition of more recent residents of Hell such as Adolf Hitler and Boss Tweed .
- Structure and Story
- History
- Thematic Concerns
- Influences
- Literary Influence in The English-Speaking World and Beyond
- In Popular Culture
- See Also
- Citations
- External Links
The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three cantiche (singular cantica) – Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) – each consisting of 33 cantos (Italian plural canti). An initial canto, serving as an introduction to the poem and generally considered to be part of the first cantica, brings the t...
Manuscripts
According to the Italian Dante Society, no original manuscriptwritten by Dante has survived, although there are many manuscript copies from the 14th and 15th centuries – some 800 are listed on their site.
Early translations
Coluccio Salutati translated some quotations from the Comedy into Latin for his De fato et fortuna in 1396–1397. The first complete translation of the Comedy was made into Latin prose by Giovanni da Serravalle in 1416 for two English bishops, Robert Hallam and Nicholas Bubwith, and an Italian cardinal, Amedeo di Saluzzo. It was made during the Council of Constance. The first verse translation, into Latin hexameters, was made in 1427–1431 by Matteo Ronto[fr]. The first translation of the Comed...
Early printed editions
The first printed edition was published in Foligno, Italy, by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi on 11 April 1472. Of the 300 copies printed, fourteen still survive. The original printing press is on display in the Oratorio della Nunziatellain Foligno.
The Divine Comedy can be described simply as an allegory: each canto, and the episodes therein, can contain many alternative meanings. Dante's allegory, however, is more complex, and, in explaining how to read the poem (see the Letter to Cangrande) he outlines other levels of meaning besides the allegory: the historical, the moral, the literal, and...
Classical
Without access to the works of Homer, Dante used Virgil, Lucan, Ovid, and Statius as the models for the style, history, and mythology of the Comedy. This is most obvious in the case of Virgil, who appears as a mentor character throughout the first two canticles and who has his epic The Aeneid praised with language Dante reserves elsewhere for Scripture. Ovid is given less explicit praise in the poem, but besides Virgil, Dante uses Ovid as a source more than any other poet, mostly through meta...
Christian
The Divine Comedy's language is often derived from the phraseology of the Vulgate. This was the only translation of the Bible Dante had access to, as it was one the vast majority of scribeswere willing to copy during the Middle Ages. This includes five hundred or so direct quotes and references Dante derives from the Bible (or his memory of it). Dante also treats the Bible as a final authority on any matter, including on subjects scripture only approaches allegorically. The Divine Comedy is a...
Islamic
Dante lived in a Europe of substantial literary and philosophical contact with the Muslim world, encouraged by such factors as Averroism ("Averrois, che'l gran comento feo" Commedia, Inferno, IV, 144, meaning "Averrois, who wrote the great comment") and the patronage of Alfonso X of Castile. Of the twelve wise men Dante meets in Canto X of the Paradiso, Thomas Aquinas and, even more so, Siger of Brabant were strongly influenced by Arabic commentators on Aristotle. Medieval Christian mysticism...
The Divine Comedy was not always as well-regarded as it is today. Although recognized as a masterpiece in the centuries immediately following its publication, the work was largely ignored during the Enlightenment, with some notable exceptions such as Vittorio Alfieri; Antoine de Rivarol, who translated the Inferno into French; and Giambattista Vico...
The Divine Comedy has been a source of inspiration for countless artists for almost seven centuries. There are many references to Dante's work in literature. In music, Franz Liszt was one of many composers to write works based on the Divine Comedy. In sculpture, the work of Auguste Rodin includes themes from Dante. Sculptor Timothy Schmalz created ...
List of cultural references in Divine ComedyBibliography
1. Eiss, Harry (2017). Seeking God in the Works of T. S. Eliot and Michelangelo. New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. ISBN 978-1-4438-4390-4. 2. Shaw, Prue (2014). Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity. New York: Liveright Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63149-006-4. 3. Trone, George Andrew (2000). "Exile". In Lansing, Richard (ed.). The Dante Encyclopedia. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-87611-7.
Divine Comedy at Standard Ebooks(in Italian) Full text of the Commedia Archived 27 February 2021 at the Wayback MachineDante Dartmouth Project: Full text of more than 70 Italian, Latin, and English commentaries on the Commedia, ranging in date from 1322 (Iacopo Alighieri) to the 2000s (Robert Hollander)All of Dante’s work on The Comedy (later called The Divine Comedy, and consisting of three books: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso) was done after his exile. He completed Inferno, which depicts an allegorical journey through Hell, around 1314.
3 days ago · The Divine Comedy is a long narrative poem written in Italian by Dante circa 1308–21. It consists of three sections: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The poem traces the journey of Dante from darkness and error to the revelation of the divine light, culminating in the Beatific Vision of God.
In his epic poem known as the Divine Comedy, Dante creates a fictional version of himself who travels through the farthest reaches of hell (Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio) and paradise (Paradiso). Many details that he describes along this journey have left a lasting impression on the Western imagination for more than half a millennium.
3 days ago · Dante and Virgil beset by demons on their passage through the eighth circle of Hell, engraving by Gustave Doré, 1861. The engraving depicts Malebolge, the eighth circle of Hell, in Canto XVIII of Inferno (The Divine Comedy). (more)
