Q 01/05

The Divine Comedy is divided into three parts. Which is the middle one?

A) Inferno

B) Limbo

C) Paradiso

D) Purgatorio

Answer · why

D) Purgatorio

Allegorically the three parts trace the soul's rejection of sin, the penitent Christian life and the ascent to God.

Q 02/05

Roughly when was the Divine Comedy written?

A) Begun c. 1350, finished c. 1375

B) Begun c. 1265, finished c. 1290

C) Begun c. 1400, finished c. 1420

D) Begun c. 1308, finished c. 1321

Answer · why

D) Begun c. 1308, finished c. 1321

Dante finished it shortly before his death in September 1321.

Q 03/05

In which language, rather than Latin, did Dante write the Divine Comedy?

A) Venetian

B) Sicilian

C) Tuscan

D) Provençal

Answer · why

C) Tuscan

The poem helped establish that dialect as standard Italian; Dante is called the father of the Italian language.

Q 04/05

Who first attached the adjective 'Divine' to Dante's Comedy, in a treatise written in the 1350s?

A) Giovanni Boccaccio

B) Coluccio Salutati

C) Francesco Petrarch

D) Lodovico Dolce

Answer · why

A) Giovanni Boccaccio

Dante simply called it Comedìa; the first printed edition to put 'Divina Comedia' on the title page was Dolce's of 1555.

Q 05/05

How many lines does the Divine Comedy contain?

A) 10,000

B) 6,666

C) 14,233

D) 24,000

Answer · why

C) 14,233

They are split into three cantiche of 33 cantos each, plus an introductory canto, for 100 in total.