Q 01/05

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

A) All hope

B) All memory

C) All speech

D) All pride

Answer · why

A) All hope

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 us...

Q 02/05

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

A) Fire

B) Mud

C) Ice

D) Stone

Answer · why

C) Ice

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 wing...

Q 03/05

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

A) Ovid

B) Horace

C) Lucan

D) Virgil

Answer · why

D) Virgil

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.

Q 04/05

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

A) Seven

B) Nine

C) Ten

D) Twelve

Answer · why

B) Nine

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 m...

Q 05/05

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

A) Nero and Caligula

B) Sulla and Catiline

C) Brutus and Cassius

D) Pilate and Tiberius

Answer · why

C) Brutus and Cassius

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 cent...