A Visual Depiction of Dante’s Inferno

• Class project for Dr.Hale’s World Literature Course - Fall 1999 by Barbara Christopher

How to stay out of Hell

• “The Law of contradiction is a basic principle of Aristotelian logic: to repent of one’s sin and to want to commit it at the same time is a self-contradiction.”

• from Allen Mandelbaum’s Translation- Notes on Canto XXVIII

• image by Gustave Dore

The Inferno: Hell

• Hell spiraling downward. Within each circle you find sinners being eternally punished for their sins.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

The Inferno

• Hell has nine circles. – Limbo– Lust– Gluttonous– Wrathful & Sullen– Heretics– Violent (includes 3 rings)– Fraud (includes 10 pouches)– Treachery (includes 4 rings)– Lucifer

• Image by Barry Moser

The Inferno

• The layers of Hell from the inside looking down. The deeper you descend the more grievous the sin and the grotesque and offensive the punishment.

• Image by Bartolomeo

Canto ILost in the Dark Woods

• Dante, realizing he has strayed from a true path, finds himself lost in the woods.

• Image by Gustave Dore

Canto I Lost in the Dark Woods

• Lost and confronted by 3 beasts.• Image by Sandro Botticelli

Canto III: Gate to Hell

• William Blake’s interpretation of Dante and Virgil readying themselves to enter the Gate to Hell.

Canto III: Inscription Over Gates of Hell

• Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my high artificer; my maker was divine authority, the highest wisdom, and the primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I endure eternally. ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.

Canto III: The Ferryman Charon

• Charon crossing the Acheron River on his way to pick up shades who are going to meet their punishment.

• Image by Gustave Dore

Canto IV: Virtuous PagansLimbo

• First Circle - Limbo: These souls created no evil. They were good men who used reason to live by but because they were never baptized, they reside in an area in Hell called Limbo.

• Image by Gustave Dore

Canto V

The next four slides tell the story of Paolo and Francesca

Upper Hell - The Lustful

Canto V: Paolo and Francesca

• Paolo and Francesca reading the story of Sir Lancelot.

• Image by Anselm Feuerbach

Canto V: Paolo and Francesca

• Overcome by passion, the book falls to the floor and they read no more.

• Image by Amos Cassioli

Canto V:Paolo and Francesca

• Paolo and Francesca tossed violently by a wind storm as Virgil and Dante watch. Francesca tells Dante her story.

• Image by Ary Scheffer

Canto VPaolo and Francesca

• Image by Dante Rossetti

Canto VIII: The Wrathful and the Fallen Angels

• The fallen angels protecting the Wall of Dis.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

Canto X: The Heretics

• Virgil guides Dante through the heated tombs of the Heretics.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

Canto XIII: The Violent against Themselves

• The woods of the suicides. In life, they had no desire to be human, in Hell they are deprived of their human form.

• Image by Federico Zuccari

Canto XVIII: The Panders, Seducers and the Flatters

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

Canto XIX: Simoniacs

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XX: The Fortune Tellers and Diviners

• Because they tried to see so far into the future, Fortune Tellers and Diviners heads have been twisted so they they all face backward.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

Canto XXIII The Hypocrites

• The Hypocrites in their hooded capes, gilded on the outside but heavily lined in lead.

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Cantos XXIV: Thieves

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XXIV: Punishment of Thieves

• Naked humans in the pit of snakes.

• Image by William Blake

Canto XXVIEvil Counselors

• Evil and fraudulent counselors cloaked in flames.

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XXVIII Sowers of Scandal

• Sowers of discord and scandal perpetually circling while demons wound them. When their wounds heal they are wounded again just as rumor wounds again as it circles around.

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XXIX: The Falsifiers

• Falsifiers live in a pit of disease that smells of festering and rotting limbs.

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XXIX: The Falsifiers

• The pit of disease - notice how Virgil and Dante cover their noses to try to avoid the smell.

• image by William Blake

Canto XXXII: Traitors to Kin

• Immersed in the frozen lake of Cocytus with heads bent down.

• Image by Gustave Dore

Canto XXXIV: Lucifer

• Lucifer with 3 heads gnawing on sinners.• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XXXIV: Lucifer

• Lucifer with large bat type wings in the frozen lake of Cocytus.

• image by Gustave Dore

The Inferno

• Virgil guides Dante out of Hell using Lucifer’s hair stairs and “It was from there that we emerged to see - once more the stars”.