Dante Alighieri – An analysis of the inferno
Submitted by:
Tutor: Anne Administrator (infoskills@abdn.ac.uk)
Course Code: SK1505 Introductory History
Submission date: 18 July 2005
Introduction
Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265. The major struggle in Italy at during
his liftime was between the Guelphs, a nationalist party who supported the papacy;
and the Ghibellines, who supported European unification under the Holy Roman
Empire (whose power after the Great Interregnum [1254 - 1273] was waning.) The
Guelphs had been active in enlisting cities that were demanding municipal rights and
liberties - and one of these was Florence.
The particular struggle going on in Florence at the time of Dante was between two
factions of Guelphs - the Neri (Blacks) and Bianchi (Whites). Dante was one of the
Bianchi.
The two factions were interlocked in rivalry, with the Whites wishing to remain
independent of both the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, and the Blacks who saw
the Pope as an ally against imperial power. It was at Dante's request that in the cause
of peace the leaders of both factions were exiled. Pope Boniface VIII enabled the
leaders of the Blacks to return to Florence in 1301; whence they seized power. They
banned Dante form the city in 1302 for two years, fining him heavily. He refused to
pay, and was therefore condemned to death in his absence.
Dante spent his exile in northern Italian cities, mainly Verona, and Paris; eventually
transforming in his political beliefs - he became a Ghibelline. Dante died in exile in
1321.
The divine comedy
It was probably in 1307 that Dante started work on La Divina Commedia (The Divine
Comedy). The great work is in three sections; L’Inferno, Il Purgatorio and Il Paradiso,
and the original Italian is written in a complicated rhyming scheme called terza rima
(third rhyme). He was a fan of the Roman poet Virgil; and based his idea of the
cosmography of Hell totally on Virgil's pre-Christian description of the underworld as
is found in book 6 of the Aeneid, in which Aeneas attempts to find his father in the
underworld.
In fact it is Virgil, himself residing in the top layer of Hell known as limbo (having
been unlucky enough to have been contemporary with Christ and therefore not aware
of Christianity) who acts as Dante’s guide.
Conclusions
Despite he fact that, as they get into the lower depths of the underworld, the tortures
inflicted on the mythical and (predominantly Florentine) political acquaintances that
Dante encounters and questions get more and more horrifying, often involving fire,
the general temperature drops until they reach the permanently frozen area in which
the Devil resides at the very centre of the earth. Hell is organised into a series of
circles, one on top of the other, narrowing, as it gets deeper and deeper, until the
travellers reach the area Dante calls Malebolge, which is described in canto VIII.
Bibliography
Adams, A. A Modern Interpretation of Dante’s Inferno London: Pageless Books,
1999
Sutherland, A., A Future Inferno London: Pageless Books, 2009