50 Fun Facts About Dante's Inferno

What must souls abandon as they pass through the gate of hell in Canto 3 of Dante's Inferno?

All hope is what the gate's inscription orders newcomers to leave behind. Its closing line in Italian, 'Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate', is usually translated 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'.

What holds the traitors fast in the lowest circle of Dante's Inferno, where the Devil himself is trapped?

Ice, not fire, fills the bottom of Dante's hell, where traitors are locked in a frozen lake called Cocytus. The wind from the Devil's own beating wings keeps it frozen.

Which Roman poet rescues Dante from three beasts and guides him down through hell in Dante's Inferno?

Virgil wrote the Aeneid, whose hero also travels through the underworld. In Dante's Inferno he lives among the virtuous pagans of the first circle.

Into how many circles, each for a graver sin than the last, is hell divided in Dante's Inferno?

Nine circles narrow toward the centre of the Earth, each holding worse sinners than the one above. Counting the vestibule outside them, hell has ten main divisions.

Which two Romans does Satan chew alongside Judas at the very bottom of hell in Dante's Inferno?

Brutus and Cassius hang from the side mouths for murdering Julius Caesar, whom Dante saw as divinely appointed to govern the world. Judas, in the centre, has his head inside the jaws.

Which sinners does the three-headed dog Cerberus claw as they lie in filthy rain in Dante's Inferno?

Gluttons wallow in the stinking slush of the third circle while Cerberus flays them. Dante's guide gets past by stuffing the beast's three mouths with mud.

How are fortune tellers punished in Dante's Inferno for trying to see into the future?

Their heads face backwards, so they must walk in reverse forever, blinded by their own tears. Having tried to look too far ahead, they can no longer see what lies in front of them.

Which Rodin bronze, first called The Poet, was made for a doorway inspired by Dante's Inferno?

The Thinker began as the central figure above The Gates of Hell, a portal Rodin was commissioned to make in 1880. Some critics read the seated man as Dante himself, pondering his poem.

What does Dante see again in the closing line of Dante's Inferno, after climbing out of hell?

The stars return in the last line, as the poets come out beneath the open night sky. Each of the three parts of the Divine Comedy ends on the same word, 'stelle'.

Which sin earns souls an eternity of being blown about by a violent storm in Dante's Inferno?

Lust fills the second circle, where the winds toss the lovers about as their passions once did. Dante treats it as the least serious of the sins punished in hell proper.

Where does Dante find himself lost at the opening of Dante's Inferno, midway through his life?

A dark wood, the 'selva oscura', is where the poet realises he has strayed from the straight way. He is 35, half the seventy years the Bible allots to a human life.

Which of the three beasts in Canto 1 of Dante's Inferno finally drives Dante back down the hill?

A she-wolf, lean with endless hunger, pushes him back into the valley after a leopard and a lion have blocked his path. The translator John Ciardi reads her as the sins of unchecked appetite.

On the evening of which Christian holy day does Dante enter hell in Dante's Inferno, set in 1300?

Good Friday of 1300 is the day the journey starts, and the poets come out the other side just before dawn on Easter Sunday.

Which woman, Dante's lost love, comes down from Heaven to send him a guide in Dante's Inferno?

Beatrice, urged on by the Virgin Mary and Saint Lucia, goes down to the first circle to ask a poet she trusts to rescue him. The real Beatrice Portinari had died in 1290.

What do the souls who never took sides in life chase forever in Canto 3 of Dante's Inferno?

A banner that never stops whirls ahead of the uncommitted while wasps and hornets sting them. Refused by Heaven and by hell proper, they stay on the near shore of the Acheron.

Which ferryman carries the newly damned across the river Acheron in Canto 3 of Dante's Inferno?

Charon at first refuses to carry Dante because he is still alive. He gives way on hearing that the journey is willed from on high.

What does Dante do as Canto 3 of Dante's Inferno ends, leaving the river crossing undescribed?

He faints as the ground shakes and a crimson light flashes, and wakes on the far bank. He collapses the same way two cantos later, overcome by pity for Francesca da Rimini.

What name does Dante's Inferno give the first circle, home to virtuous pagans and the unbaptised?

Limbo holds souls who did not sin but lacked baptism, so they suffer no torment yet can never reach Heaven. Its great castle houses the poets and thinkers of antiquity.

Which part of the Divine Comedy follows Dante's Inferno and takes the poet up a mountain?

Purgatorio comes second and follows the climb up an island mountain on the far side of the world. Paradiso completes the three-part poem.

In which marshy river of Dante's Inferno do the wrathful fight each other in the slime?

Styx is the swamp of the fifth circle, where the wrathful tear at one another on the surface. The sullen lie beneath the water, unable even to speak their rage.

Which judge in Dante's Inferno coils his tail around himself to show each soul how far down to go?

Minos hears every soul's confession at the entrance to the second circle. The number of times his tail wraps around him is the number of the circle the sinner must go to.

Which knight's love story are Paolo and Francesca reading when their affair begins in Dante's Inferno?

Lancelot and his affair with Queen Guinevere were the pair's reading that day, and Francesca blames the book for what followed. Her husband, Paolo's own brother, stabbed them both.

Which Greek poet, sword in hand, leads the band of poets who greet Dante in Dante's Inferno?

Homer walks ahead of Horace, Ovid and Lucan like their lord. The group then welcomes Dante as the sixth in their company.

Which Muslim sultan, famed for chivalry, is set apart from the other virtuous pagans in Dante's Inferno?

Saladin, who fought the Crusaders, is set apart in the castle of the first circle, honoured for his generous and merciful conduct. The Muslim thinkers Avicenna and Averroes are placed there too.

What do hoarders and spendthrifts roll against each other in the fourth circle of Dante's Inferno?

Great weights are shoved chest-first by the two crowds, who crash together shouting 'Why do you hoard?' and 'Why do you waste?'. Dante cannot recognise a single face among them.

Which walled city, guarded by fallen angels, encloses the lower circles of hell in Dante's Inferno?

Dis shuts in everything from the sixth circle down, and its towers glow fiery red in the distance. The name was also a Roman one for Pluto, king of the underworld.

Which monster do the Furies summon against Dante at the gates of lower hell in Dante's Inferno?

Medusa is called to turn the living visitor to stone, so his guide spins him round and tells him to keep his eyes shut. An angel then opens the gate with the touch of a wand.

In what are the heretics of the sixth circle of Dante's Inferno trapped for eternity?

Flaming tombs hold Epicurus and his followers, who taught that the soul dies with the body. From one of them Farinata degli Uberti rises to argue Florentine politics with Dante.

Which creatures patrol the river of boiling blood in Dante's Inferno, firing arrows at the sinners?

Centaurs led by Chiron keep murderers and tyrants sunk in the blood to the depth their guilt deserves. One of them, Nessus, guides the poets along the bank to a shallow ford.

Into what are the souls of suicides transformed in Dante's Inferno, able to speak only when broken?

Thorny trees fill a pathless forest where Harpies tear at the leaves. When Dante snaps a twig, the trunk bleeds and tells the story of Pier della Vigna, minister to Emperor Frederick II.

Which former teacher does Dante greet with affection in the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno?

Brunetto Latini is told that his 'dear and good paternal image' stays fixed in Dante's mind, and few figures in hell get warmer treatment from the poet. It shows Dante did not fill hell only with his enemies.

Which monster with an honest man's face flies the poets down a cliff in Dante's Inferno?

Geryon hides a scorpion's tail behind that kindly face. In classical myth he was a giant with three heads and three joined bodies; Dante remade him as part man, part beast, part reptile.

Which sin is punished in the ten stone ditches of the eighth circle of Dante's Inferno?

Fraud fills the ditches with seducers, flatterers, forgers and more, each kind in a trench of its own. The place is called Malebolge, 'Evil ditches', and is shaped like a stone amphitheatre.

Which pope, who helped force Dante into exile, does an upside-down sinner mistake him for in Dante's Inferno?

Boniface VIII was not due in hell for three more years, so the speaker thinks the record has lied to him. That speaker, Pope Nicholas III, is stuck head-down in a hole for selling church offices.

In a lake of what are corrupt politicians sunk in Dante's Inferno, watched by demons with grappling hooks?

Pitch stands for the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals. The guards, the Malebranche or 'Evil Claws', tear at any sinner who shows above the surface.

What do the hypocrites wear in Dante's Inferno, gilded on the outside but crushingly heavy within?

Lead cloaks, cut like monks' habits, shine with gold while their weight slows the wearers to a crawl. The bright surface over a crushing load mirrors a show of holiness hiding deceit.

Which creatures bite the thieves and bind their hands in the seventh ditch of Dante's Inferno?

Snakes coil round the thieves and tie their hands, and some sinners swap bodies with the reptiles. Having stolen what belonged to others, they find even their own shape can be taken.

Which Greek hero, speaking from inside a tongue of fire in Dante's Inferno, tells of his final sea voyage?

Ulysses says he sailed out past the Pillars of Hercules until a whirlwind sank his ship within sight of a great mountain. Dante invented the voyage; the punishment is for frauds such as the Trojan Horse.

What does Bertran de Born carry like a lantern in Dante's Inferno, for setting son against father?

His own severed head swings from his hand by the hair. Bertran is said to have set Henry II of England against his son, and Dante has the body divided to match.

Which biblical giant shouts gibberish in Dante's Inferno, punished for trying to build the Tower of Babel?

Nimrod bellows 'Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi', a line that makes sense in no language. Dante first mistakes him and his fellow giants for the towers of a city.

Which composer made a comic opera of Gianni Schicchi, an impersonator met in Canto 30 of Dante's Inferno?

Giacomo Puccini made the rogue the hero of a one-act comedy that includes the aria 'O mio babbino caro'. In Dante's version he runs rabid through the pit and sinks his teeth into another sinner.

What crime left Master Adam bloated and forever thirsty in Canto 30 of Dante's Inferno?

Counterfeiting coins, gold florins made with 21-carat metal instead of 24, got him burned at the stake in 1281. In hell he craves a single drop of water and trades insults with the liar beside him.

Which Greek, who lied the Trojan Horse into Troy, burns with fever in Canto 30 of Dante's Inferno?

Sinon lies among the perjurers, next to the woman who falsely accused Joseph in Genesis. His slanging match with the sinner beside him holds Dante's attention until his guide scolds him for listening.

Which Pisan count gnaws an archbishop's skull in Dante's Inferno, having starved in prison with his children?

Ugolino tells how his dying children begged him to eat their bodies. The skull is that of Archbishop Ruggieri, once his partner in a plot to seize control of Pisa.

Which biblical murderer gives his name to the zone for betrayers of family in Dante's Inferno?

Cain, who killed his brother Abel in the Bible's first murder, gives his name to Caina. The next zone in, Antenora, is named after a Trojan said to have betrayed his city to the Greeks.

Which thriller writer sent Robert Langdon through Florence in a novel named after Dante's Inferno?

Dan Brown has his hero wake in a Florence hospital with a head wound and no memory of the past few days. Tom Hanks played the part again in the 2016 film.

Which Florentine painter drew the Map of Hell for a manuscript illustrating Dante's Inferno?

Botticelli drew it for an illustrated manuscript of the whole Divine Comedy, from which ninety-two drawings survive. The manuscript disappeared and most of it resurfaced in the Duke of Hamilton's collection.

Which French artist, a newspaper caricaturist at 15, became famous for his engravings of Dante's Inferno?

Gustave Doré is best known for engraved illustrations of the classics, above all Dante's poem and the Vulgate Bible. His 1866 Bible was such a success that London gave him a major exhibition a year later.

In which Italian city, where he died in exile, is the author of Dante's Inferno buried?

Ravenna has kept the bones ever since 1321. When Florence won permission to take them in 1519, its delegation found the sarcophagus empty, because Franciscan friars had secretly moved them through a hole in the wall.

Which rhyme scheme, running aba bcb cdc, did Dante invent for the poem that opens with Dante's Inferno?

Terza rima chains its stanzas together: the middle line of each sets the rhyme for the first and third lines of the next. Dante wrote it in lines of eleven syllables.