LIFE AND WORKS OF DANTE ALIGHERI born on May 1256; full name is Durante Aligheri Alighiero de Bellincione father,

er, Guelph Donna Gabriella degli Abali mother Beatrice Portinari immortal lover of Dantes verse and remained the central inspiration of his major poems Was married to Gemma Donati Served as a soldier and held several political affairs Guelphs supported the Church (Bianchi whites, independence from strict papal control; Neri blacks, willing to work with the pope to restore their power) Ghibellines supporter of the Roman Empire 1302 Dantes banishment Can Grande della Scala Lord of Verona, spent 2 long prds at his court 1321 death Eclogue full of human kindness and gentle humor, delivered when he received the laurel crown in Bologna Guido Cavalcanti friend/mentor, influenced him in his poetry La Vita Nova (The New Life) 31 poems describing his love for Beatrice Other Works: Divina Commedia, La Vita Nuova, Il Convivio (The Banquet), De Vulgari Eloquentia (On the Eloquence of the Vernacular), Monarchia Dante, Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccacio writers in Medieval Prd. Dante - white guelph and was exiled by the Blacks (asked help from the pope) DIVINE COMEDY Meets historical and mythological figures, people in the Bible Canticles- Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso Each book 33 cantos +1 introductory canto in the Inferno Allegory of human life goal is to removet those living in misery Humanism prominent view before Terza Rima 1st& 3rd line will rhyme with the 2nd line of the previous stanza

Setting year of the Jubilee in 1300, morning of Good Friday-Sunday after Easter Virgil human reason with moral and intellectual virtues Beatrice divine philosophies #3 divinity of 1 God Inferno damnation of souls with no hope, despair and suffering, darkness o 9 levels + Vestibule = 10 Purgatorio glimmer of light, they suffer in hope o 7 terrances + 2 ledges + Earthly Paradise = 10 Paradiso supernal light athmosphere closest to God o 9 heavens + Empyrean = 10 DANTES INFERNO Dark Wood of Error 35 years old, midway of lifes journey (days of the Lord 3 score years +10) Kias Kuro light and darkness Dark wood worldliness of man Jeremiah 3:6 mentioned the beasts Characters: Virgil Seen by Dante symbolic of the coming of Christ She-Wolf Avarice, incontinence Lion Pride Leopard Violence *Hound symbolic of Christ or Can Grande della Scalla *begins with an invocation with the muses Genius and Memory so he can reflect Lucia, Beatrice, Rachel (contemplative life), Virgin Mary concerned on his journey Vestibule of Hell The Opportunists Sin: Uncommitted and indecisive CP: They took no sides; therefore they are given no place. As they pursued the ever-shifting illusion of their own advantage, changing their courses with every changing wind, so they pursue eternally an elusive, ever-shifting banner. As their sin was a darkness, so they move in darkness. As their actions were a moral filth, so they run eternally through the filth of worms and maggots which they themselves feed.

Characters: ACHERON Charon Ferryman of ACHERON Pope Celestine V Great Denial, bowed out of papacy for Pope Boniface *John Paul Sarte = Refusal to choose is itself a choice. Circle 1 Virtuous Pagans Sin: They were born before the birth of Christ. CP: They were born without the light of Christs revelation, and therefore, they cannot come into the light of God, but they are not tormented. Their only pain is that they have no hope Characters: Homer Iliad and 7 philosophical virtues Prudence, Justice, Odyssey Temperance, Fortitude, Wisdom, Knowledge, Horace Roman lyric Understanding poet 7 Arts Arithmetic, Astronomy, Music, Rhetoric, Ovid Geometry, Grammar, Logic Lucan *Citadel of Human Reason the 4 with Dante and Virgil *3 groups heroes and heroines, philosophers, naturalists - SINS BY THE SHE-WOLF (Incontinence)Circle 2 The Carnal CP: Their sin was to abandon themselves to the tempest of their passions: so they are swept forever in the tempest of Hell. Characters: Semiramis Dido Tristan Paolo and Francesca No bitterness is greater than to remember happiness in a state of wretchedness Cleopatra, Helen, Paris, Achilles Names we already know (supposedly) Minos Gives verdict by wrapping his tail. Number of times he wraps his tail, # of circle. *Their sins are associated with love placing them in the upper hell Circle 3 The Gluttons CP: In life they made no higher use of the gifts of God than to wallow in food

and drink, producers of nothing but garbage and offal. Here they lie through eternity, themselves like garbage, half-buried in fetid slush. Cerberus slavers over them as they in life slavered over their food. Characters: Ciacco, the Hog A citizen of Florence. Asks about political situation. Utters about the FIRST political prophecy. Cerberus Three-headed dog *Plutus God of Material Wealth *As a thing is more perfect, the more it feels of pleasure and pain. Circle 4 The Hoarders and the Wasters Punishment: Sinners are divided into two raging mobs, each soul among them straining madly at a great boulder-like weight. The two mobs meet, clashing their weights against one another, after which they separate, pushing the great weights apart, and begin over again. CP: In life, they lacked all moderation in regulating their expenses; they destroyed the light of God within themselves by thinking of nothing but money. Thus in death, their souls are encumbered by dead weights (mundanity) and one excess serves to punish the other. Their souls, moreover, have become so dimmed and awry in their fruitless rages that there is no hope of recognizing any among them. They stopped the flow of fortune, in return, they are forever rolled in circles with rocks and boulders attached to them. Characters: Plutus Wolf-like demon of wealth which guards the 4th circle of hell Dame Fortune Transfers worldly fortune (revolving wheel - symbolic of chance) NOTE: Hoarders: Get excessively, get commodities even if they know it wont be of use Wasters: Do not give importance with what they have Circle 5 Wrathful and Sullen (Last station of Upper Hell) Punishment: (wrathful) Countless souls attacking one another in the foul slime. (sullen) Below the mud, souls lie entombed. CP: (wrathful) (sullen) In life they refused to welcome the sweet light of the Sun (Divine Illumination) and in death they are buried forever below the stinking waters of the Styx, gargling the words of an endless chant

in a grotesque parody of singing a hymn. Since they hid their wrath to others on Earth, they are also hidden in the slime Characters: STYX Phlegyas Filippo Argenti Boatman of STYX Political enemy of Dante gave prophecy (division of white and black guelphs) He almost attacked Dante many attacked him *Marsh of Styx river of hate - SINS BY THE LION (Violent and the Bestial)Dis Capital of Hell Guarded by the Rebellious Angels. (Heavenly Messenger rescues) From this circle, all are within the city walls. Dis Pluto, king of the underworld Appeared as big Mosques *Human reason = cannot cope with the essence of evil Circle 6 (City of Dis) Heretics Punishment: A countryside like a vast cemetery. Tombs of every size stretch out, each with its lid lying beside it, and each wrapped in flames. CP: Heretics of every cult: those who did violence to God by denying immortality. Since they taught that the soul dies with the body, so their punishment is an eternal grave in the fiery morgue of Gods wrath. Characters: Farinata Degli Uberti War-chief of the Tuscan ghibellines. Prophesized Dantes banishment Cavalcante Dei Cavalcanti A contemporary poet. Father of Guido Cavalcanti (friend of Dante) Thought that his son was already dead Pope Anastasius Gave communion to Photinus (follower of the Acacian heresy who denied the divinity of Christ). NOTE: Three Internal Furies Eternal remorse (Alecto, Magaera, Tisiphone)

Medusa Sight of future Epicureans

Despair, a hard heart Intellect will be void when judgment comes Soul dies with the body

*passing of Phlegeton river of blood Circle 7 The Violent inner edge of the circle: great jumble of rocks that was once a cliff but fallen into rubble due to the Great Earthquake Hid behind a tomb to get used of the smell. (Pope Anastasius) The division of the lower hell The Ethics and The Physics by Aristotle Violence the beastly nature of man which is why beasts are involved here Circle 7 Round One - The Violent Against Neighbors Sinners: (great war-makers, cruel tyrants, highwaymen) CP: As they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever. Centaurs patrol the banks, shooting their arrows to any sinner who raises himself out. Boiling blood anger and violence they did before Characters: Minotaur Half-man, half-bull plagued the sinners PHLEGETHON River of boiling blood Alexander the Great Dionysius Atilla, the scourge of God Chief Centaurs: Chiron Transports them through the river Phlegethon Nessus Azzalino Killed a great number of Paduans Opizzo da Esti Guy de Montfort Avenged his fathers death and committed the crime in a church at Viterbo. Circle 7 Round Two - The Violent Against Themselves Punishment: Souls of the suicides are encased in thorny trees whose leaves are eaten by HARPIES. When they feed upon them, damaging their leaves and limbs, the wound bleeds. Only when the blood flows are the souls able to speak CP: They who destroyed their own bodies are denied a human form; and

just as their expression was self-destruction, so they are permitted to speak only when their blood flows. Characters: Harpies Pier Delle Vigne Jacomo Da Sant Andrea Lano da Siena Snatch away souls bird with a face of a woman Explained the presence of harpies there

*formed themselves in a wheel because they cannot stop running *cord hoped to catch the leopard with it a strange creature will appear - Dante became a minor friar of the Franciscans *Geryon beast with a handsome mans face but a dragons body and scorpions tail - SINS BY THE LEOPARD (Fraudulent and Malicious)Circle 8 The Fraudulent and Malicious Malebolge Evil ditches SIMPLE FRAUD

Circle 7 Round Three - The Violent Against God, Nature and Art God - Blasphemy Nature - Sodomy Art Usury Punishment: Great plain of BURNING SAND descent of RAIN OF FIRE Blasphemers stretched supine upon the sand Sodomites run in endless circles Usurers huddled on the sands CP: Burning plain sterility (unproductive); fire image wrath Blasphemy, sodomy and usury are all unnatural and sterile actions thus the unbearing desert is the eternity of these sinners. Usurers eyes flowing with tears forever fixated on the purses. -since they always looked at their money in life, so they are in hell. -make fertile what is sterile Sodomites make sterile what is fertile Characters: Capaneus Chief sinner, blasphemed Zeus Old Man of Crete Tears of blood flow from it. Form the 3 rivers of hell Ser Brunetto Latino Sodomite; mentor of Dante; prophesied his exile *never intended to put him in hell but Dante knew of his sin only after his death *wraiths Ghost of a dead person Jacopo Rusticucci Labeled a sodomite Guido Guerra | Tegghiaio Aldobrandi | Geryon Monster of fraud

Circle 8 Bolgia 1 The Panderers and Seducers Punishment: Two files, on along either bank of the ditch and are driven at an endless fast walk by horned demons who hurry them along with great lashes CP: In life, these sinners goaded others on to serve their own foul purposes; so in Hell are they driven in their turn. Horned demons who drive them symbolize the sinners own vicious natures, embodiments of their own guilty consciences. Characters: Venedico Caccianemico Sold his sister to another mans lust Jason *horns cuckoldry and adultery Circle 8 Bolgia 2 The Flatterers Punishment: Souls sunk in excrement CP: Souls sunk in excrement equivalent of flattery on earth. Characters: Alessio Interminelli Thais Circle 8 Bolgia 3 The Simoniacs Details: Simoniacs sellers of ecclesiastic favors and offices Punishment: Lined with round tube-like holes and the sinners are placed in them upside down with the soles of their feet ablaze. (Sinners are

CP:

temporary. They are replaced and forever trapped in the crevices of the rock) Just as they made a mock of holy office, so are they turned upside down in a mockery of the baptismal font. Just as they made a mockery of the holy water of baptism, so is their hellish baptism of fire. The oily fire that licks at their soles may also suggest a travesty on the oil used in Extreme Unction (waiting for Pope Boniface VIII)

Characters: Pope Nicholas III

Circle 8 Bolgia 4 The Fortune Tellers and Diviners Sinners: Souls of all those who attempted by forbidden arts to look into the future. soothsayers Punishment: Their heads turned backwards on their bodies and to be compelled to walk backwards CP: Those who sought to penetrate the future cannot even see in front of themselves; they attempted to move themselves forward in time, so must they go backwards through all eternity; and as the arts of sorcery are a distortion of Gods law, so are their bodies distorted in Hell. Characters: Amphiareus Tried to escape death by not joining a war Tiresias Oedipus Rex Thibian diviner Aruns Manto Founder of Virgils hometown (Mantua) Eurypylus Michael Scott Guido Bonatti Asdente *divinity use sorcery and magic to deviate the will of God *fortune tellers tell the future, fate, destiny and the like *Dante was moved to tears was scolded by Virgil because it shows that he questions Gods punishment Circle 8 Bolgia 5 The Grafters

Punishment: Sunk in boiling pitch and guarded by demons who tear to pieces with claws and grappling hooks if they catch them above the surface Sinners: Civil equivalent of Simony CP: The sticky pitch is symbolic of the sticky fingers of the Grafters. It serves also to hide them from sight, as their sinful dealings on earth were hidden from mens eyes. The demons, too, suggest symbolic possibilities, for they are armed with grappling hooks and are forever ready to rend and tear all they can get their hands on. Characters: Malacoda Leader of demons Blacktalons The demons St. Zita Venerated in Lucca Friar Gomita Took bribes to let prisoners escape Michel Zanche Got money King of Sardinia went to war Unidentified Navaresse Hellken & Grizzly Demons, fought for the Navaresse *Gargoyle Cantos (Canto 21 & 22) presence of the demons *Malacoda deceived them on crossing the broken bridge Circle 8 Bolgia 6 The Hypocrites Punishment: Weighed down by leaden robes, walk eternally round and round a narrow track. CP: The robes are brilliantly gilded on the outside and are shaped like a monks habit, for the hypocrites outward appearance shines brightly and passes for holiness, but under that show lies the terrible weight of his deceit which the soul must bear through all eternity. Characters: Catalono & Loderingo Two jovial friars Caiaphas Crucified to the floor of Hell by three great stakes and in a position that every passing sinner must walk upon him. *since Christ bore the sins of all, so must he bear the wrongdoings of others. *Hypocrites one who pretends to have admirable principles, beliefs or feelings but behaves otherwise *Fable of the mouse and the frog mouse wanted to cross the river and was tied to the frogs feet. When the hawk caught the mouse, the frog was also caught.

Circle 8 Bolgia 7 The Thieves Punishment: Monstrous reptiles who curl themselves about the sinners like living coils of rope, binding each sinners hands behind his back and knotting themselves through the loins Other reptiles dart about the place, and pierce the jugular vein immediately burst into flames. Painful transformation CP: Thievery is reptilian in its secrecy; therefore it is punished by reptiles. The hands of thieves are the agents of their crimes; therefore they are bound forever As the thief destroys his fellowmen by making their substance disappear, so is he painfully destroyed and made to disappear, not once but over and over again In life they took the substance of others, transforming it into their own. So in hell their very bodies are constantly being taken from them, and they are left to steal back a human form from some other sinner. When you are poor (snake), you steal to be rich (human). When you are rich (human), poor people steal from you and make you poor. Characters: Vanni Fucci Utters a prophecy against Dante white guelphs destroys the house of the black guelphs Cursed God with obscene gestures Centaur CACUS Raided the cattle of Hercules Five Noble Thieves of Florence Circle 8 Bolgia 8 The Evil Counselors * Dante laments the situation of Florence. (Chief Magistrate) Sinners: All men of gift who abused their genius, perverting it to wiles and stratagems. Punishment: Move about endlessly, hidden from view inside great flames. CP: Their sin was to abuse the gifts of the Almighty, to steal his virtues for low purposes. And as they stole from God in their lives, and worked by hidden ways, so are they stolen from sight and hidden in the great flames which are their own guilty consciences. And they Characters: Ulysses Diomedes

sinned by glibness of tongue, so are the flames made into a fiery travesty of tongues 1st wooden horse 2nd forced Achilles to leave his wife 3rd stole the sacred statue of Pallas Count Guido da Montefeltro Lord of Romagna Gave advise to Pope Boniface VIII in exchange for absolution *Dante was a Chief Magistrate - considered himself as a counselor but his way shall not be by deception was exiled already *flames their own guilty conscience *St. Francis gathers the souls of the monks *Sicilian Bull pipe where victims bellow when sentenced to death Circle 8 Bolgia 9 Sowers of Discord religious discord political discord discord between kinsmen CP: Their sin was to rend asunder what God had meant to be united, so are they hacked and torn through all eternity by a great demon with a blood sword. They are hung; turn and they drag their bodies. They are responsible of a scandal which is why they are torn apart, just as they tore the lives of others apart. *religious split into two, just at they split the Church Schism between Christianity and Mohammedanism

Characters: Religious Discord Mahomet Ali Fra Dolcino Political Discord Pier da Medicina Curio Mosca dei Lamberti Discord between kinsmen Bertrand de Born

Separated father from son (Henry II and Prince Henry)

now beheaded Geri del Bello *Evil Counselor false advice *Sowers of Discord create writhe and lack in harmony due to their advice Circle 8 Bolgia 10 The Falsifiers Class I Alchemists (items) Class II Impersonator (persons) Class III Counterfeiters (money) Class IV False witnesses (words) Punishment: Afflictions of every sense: by darkness, stench, thirst, filth, loathsome diseases, shrieking din, others running through the pit tearing others to pieces. CP: Just as in life they corrupted society by their falsification, so in death these sinners are subjected to a sum of corruptions. In one sense, they figure forth what society would be if all falsifiers succeeded a place where the senses are an affliction rather than a guide. Since falsification deceives the senses, so are their senses being punished in hell. Impersonators: in life, they seized upon the appearance of others and in death they must run with never a pause, seizing upon the infernal apparition of these souls, while they are preyed upon by their own furies. Characters: Geri del Belle Soul that Dante searched for Alchemists Griffolino dArezzo An alchemist Capocchio An alchemist Evil Impersonators Running and snatching at other souls Gianni Schicchi Impersonated the dead to change the will (snatched Griffolino) Myrrha Counterfeiters punished by a loathsome disease and he cannot move Master Adam from where he lies; unbearable thirst False Witnesses strike each other using the arm Potiphars wife accused Joseph of attempting to seduce her Sinon the greek convinced Trojans to bring the horse inside the city Central Pit of Malebolge The Giants CP: Characters: Nimrod Briareus Ephialtes Tityos Typhon Antaeus Archetypal of defiant rebels, was placed there because of their very nature and they impose threat to the gods. Only the giants who wages war against the gods are chained to the ground in hell. Builder of Tower of Babel Olympian Gods He and Twin Otus scaled Olympus Rapist Rebel No offense, Brought them safely

Circle 9 Compound Fraud Frozen lake COCYTUS Ice is divided into four concentric rings The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and all of human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied Gods love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice. Circle 9 Round 1 Caina (Treachery against Kin) Punishment: Necks and heads out of the ice and are permitted to bow their heads allows some protection from the freezing gale and allows their tears to fall without freezing their eyes Characters: Alessandro and Napoleone Degli Alberti Camicion *Caina named from Cain *ice - symbol of guilt *invoked the muses for truth when he relays what he will see in the last circle Circle 9 Round 2 Antenora (Treachery against Country)

Punishment: Heads out of the ice but cannot bend necks. Characters: Bocca Degli Abbati Dante accidentally kicks his head Count Ugolino Gnawing at Ruggieris brains, hired assassins to kill his brother. He was a creature. Archbishop Ruggieri Treason send Ugolino to the tower of hunger *Antenora from Antenor a Trojan who betrayed his countrymen Circle 9 Round 3 Ptolomea (Treachery against guests) Punishment: Half their faces above the ice and their tears frozen in their sockets. Even the comfort of tears is denied them So great is its sin that they souls of the guilty fall to its torments even before they die, leaving their bodies still on earth inhabited by demons Characters: Friar Alberigo Bianca DOria Circle 9 Round 4 Judecca (Treachery agains their Masters) Punishment: Lie completely sealed in ice, twisted and distorted into every conceivable posture Characters: Judas Iscariot Middle of Satan (red violence) Brutus Roman Senator assassination of Caesar (left black ignorance) Cassius Brother-in-law of Brutus (right yellow impotence) *canto 34 beginning of a hymn in Latin The banners of the king go forth King of Hell climax of the Inferno and is equivalent to the description of seeing God in Paradiso *Caesar founder of Rome, close to Aligheris heart. *They climb into a central rock to the River of Lethe (river of forgetfulness) *stars - Divine illumination Satan wings beating like a windmill: source of the icy wind of Cocytus fixed into the ice at the center to which flow all rivers of guilt.

Three faces: Judas Iscariot middle, Brutus and Cassius at either heads He plunged headfirst to hell, the impact of this created the circles of hell. Three faces a parody of the Holy Trinity

*The classification of sin in Hell: Incontinence simply the weakness of the will Malice there is an intention Violence can be committed unintentionally by beasts Fraud gravest because when you deceive people, you hurt the ones closes to your heart only humans are capable of this