Ital. J. Geosci., Vol. 135, No. 1 (2016), pp. 95-108, 5 figs. (doi: 10.3301/IJG.2015.
01)
© Società Geologica Italiana, Roma 2016
“Per tremoto o per sostegno manco”:
The Geology of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno
MARCO ROMANO (*)
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the present paper is to analyse the geological
elements and references found in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, which
have never been treated in complete and comprehensive manner.
Dante used wisely and in a unique manner the elements of nature,
especially of landscape, to build the material foundation on which
the fiction of the underworld journey is based. Specific kinds of
rocks, steep cliffs, landslide bodies, lakes of hydrothermal water,
waterfalls, become basic material in the hands of the Florentine
poet, on which to base metaphors and similes.
In Dante’s Inferno there are references to hydrogeology, earth-
quakes, mountain structures, deposition of travertine, landscape
modelling, meteorological phenomena, structure of the Earth and of
the entire cosmos. The grandeur and mastery of Dante lies in being
able to communicate, in short lines, the strong separation between
scientific facts of natural phenomena and their use for aesthetic,
poetic, political, and even ethical purposes. In dealing with complex
issues such as the “geophysical equilibrium” and the reason for the
current distribution of land and ocean, Dante does not simply accept
the theories of Aristotle (as stated by several exegetes) but shows a
critical and deep analysis in the field of geology sensu lato, considering
and preferring the phenomenal datum to the abstract theories. The
work of Dante and his contemporaries did not impersonate the
“dark period” for science, as found in many interpretations of the
Middle Ages, but the cultural context where those questions were
posed which served as foundation and propellant for the subsequent
“scientific revolution”.
KEY WORDS: Dante, Divine Comedy, Geology, Ptolemy,
Aristotle.
INTRODUCTION
“But it’s useless for me to tend to inadequately express
spectacles of such type. Just one pen could paint them: that
of Dante! Great pity that the Florentine poet, instead of
microscopic irregularities of the Apennines, has not known
the colossal and sublime horrors of the Alps! What images
and brushstrokes would have drawn that fine observer of
nature, which so deeply felt all the more recondite nature
beauties” (quotation in STOPPANI, 1865). With these words
Quintino Sella (1827-1884) geologist, mountaineer and
politician of the Reign of Italy (fig. 1), faced with the geo-
logical spectacle of an alpine landscape, goes back with
his mind to the monumental work by Dante, emphasizing
the ability of the Florentine Poet to translate, into immor-
tal lines, the most disparate elements of the natural
world. Dante’s Divine Comedy represents a true holistic
compendium of human knowledge at the beginning of the
(*) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, “Sapienza” Università di
Roma, P.le A. Moro, 5 - 00185 Rome, Italy. Corresponding author
e-mail: marco.romano@uniroma1.it
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fourteenth century, ranging from theology, philosophy,
natural science, medicine, politics, ethics, geography,
astronomy, literature and the arts, bringing authors such
as OSSOLA (2012) to define this work as the most crowded
medieval encyclopaedia. In addition to a careful references
to astronomy (e.g. ANTONELLI, 1865; SANTI, 1915; MANZI,
1917; GIZZI, 1974; PECORARO, 1987) between the lines of
the Divine Comedy it is possible to find refined references
to medicine (see CERBO, 2001), the organization of living
beings with particular reference to the behaviour of
several animals, considered as primary source materials
for metaphors and similes and therefore often used with
ethical implications. This tight integration between
poetry and science, between sublime lines and natural
world, has led RICCI (1914) to state that, after the ancient
world poets, the deep impression exercised on the human
mind by nature essentially begins with Dante.
The present paper focuses on one of the scientific
aspects treated by Dante in his Inferno, and in particular
on the geological issues that have never been considered
in total and organic way in the exegesis found in litera-
ture. The geological subject is here understood sensu lato,
including a brief mention of the cosmological system,
processes and products shaping the landscape, shape and
structure of the Earth, earthquakes, types of rocks directly
mentioned and some atmospheric phenomena.
According to INGLESE (2002), Dante in his work is
conscious of integrating the philosophy of Aristotle with
the rational basis of Christian thought (an attempt already
present in Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas). Many
of the interpretations that could be called “geological”
sensu lato present in the Commedia are a direct legacy of
the Aristotelian thought (e.g. Metereologica, ARISTOTLE,
2000), made available for translation and then by a new
interest in ancient world knowledge starting from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. From the combination
of the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system and the revealed truth
of the Bible, we find, in the thought of Dante, references
to a universe entirely created by God, with an Earth that
is only 6500 years old (see GIZZI, 1974; nothing could be
farther from the concept of “deep time”, major milestone
of the geological thought), where earthquakes and oroge-
nesis are caused by the exhalation of the subterranean
vapours, the emerged lands are concentrated in the
northern hemisphere, while the southern hemisphere is
occupied entirely by the ocean.
These geological interpretations must be evaluated
within the context in which they were conceived. It is
sufficient to consider that the first meaningful and
organic reasoning in the field of geology can be traced
back to the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci (see DE
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Fig. 1 - Quintino Sella (1827-1884) geologist, mountaineer and politician
of the Reign of Italy (from the archive of the Italian Geological Society).
LORENZO, 1920; VAI, 1986, 1995, 2003a, 2003b), about a
century after Dante’s death. To see the term “geology”
appear in literature for the first time we have to wait the
work by Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603 (VAI, 1995, 2003c;
VAI & CAVAZZA, 2006). Until the end of the seventeenth
century there is still a vigorous debate about the true
nature of fossils, with a numerous faction who still
strongly supports the inorganic origin (see NELSON,
1968; ACCORDI, 1975, 1976, 1978; SARTI, 1988, 2003;
MORELLO, 2003; VAI, 2003a; LUZZINI, 2009; ROMANO,
2013, 2015). Only in 1669 (i.e. 350 years after Dante’s
work) the Prodromus by STENO (2010) will introduce
the principles of superposition and original horizonta-
lity of strata (although according to VAI, 1986, 1995
however, they were already present in Leonardo’s note-
books). Even at the end of the seventeenth century,
especially in England, the different “Sacred theories of
the Earth” or “Theological philosophical systems” such
as those of Thomas Burnet (1635-1715), John Ray
(1627-1705) and William Whinston (1666-1753), found
wide dissemination, with the direct observation of geo-
logical phenomena often avoided or discarded alto-
gether, in order to reconcile geological theories with the
Holy Scriptures. Such treaties were often studded with
several quotations from the “Fathers of the Church”, an
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M. ROMANO
attitude that perhaps reached its peak with John Wood-
ward (see SARTI, 1988, 2002; VAI, 2003a).
The geological references in Dante’s Inferno should
be read in those specific circumstances and historical
context. As convincingly anticipated by GORTANI (1932)
and highlighted by GRANT (2001), we must avoid the
usual interpretation of the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages
for science to which oppose, as perfect antipode, the
scientific revolution characterizing the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Actually, the work of natural
philosophers between the twelfth and fourteenth cen-
turies has in some way built the substrate, the essential
foundation without which no kind of scientific revolu-
tion could have arisen two or three centuries later in
Western Europe (GRANT, 2001). Among the essential ele-
ments that make the period between the twelfth and
fourteenth centuries crucial to the subsequent develop-
ment of modern science, GRANT (2001) calls into question
the many translations of Arabic and Greek languages into
Latin and the birth of medieval universities. Related to
this last point is the emergence of a class of theologian-
natural philosophers and the acceptance, by the church,
that the works and theories of Aristotle could be studied
and rehearsed. On the basis of this cultural substrate,
where a critical analysis of the problems of natural phi-
losophy overcame the passive acceptance of dogma,
GRANT (2001, p. 111) correctly states: “The scientific revo-
lution was not the result of new questions put to nature in
place of medieval questions. It was, at least initially, more a
matter of finding new answers to old questions, answers
that came, more and more, to include experiments, which
were exceptional occurrences in the Middle Ages” (see also
GRANT, 1997, 2004, 2008, 2011).
The work of Dante should be read and interpreted in
the light of all the above, and in this sense the geological
elements detectable in Dante’s Inferno will be treated.
The English translation chosen for Dante’s lines is
that by Mark Musa for The Indiana Critical Edition
(1995) which sometimes is truly inadequate. The transla-
tions of the lines taken from this volume are reported in
italics. In some cases it has been necessary to give a literal
translation of the text, in order to maintain the original
meaning intended by Dante (translations not in italics).
THE STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH IN DANTE
“Scientific” knowledge at the time of Dante regarded
the Earth as a perfect sphere (see ALEXANDER, 1986) with
a circumference of 20,400 miles and a radius of 3250 miles
(these are the measures that Dante himself provides
directly in the Convivio, see DE MARZO, 1864; BOYDE,
1984), a value reasonably close to those currently
accepted. According to PECORARO (1987), the measures
used by Dante are not those of Eratosthenes but those of
Claudius Ptolemy, in agreement with the studies of Posi-
donius and Marinus Of Tyre.
The poet places his Inferno in the northern hemi-
sphere, and imagine it as an inverted cone, placed
beneath Jerusalem, which gradually narrows reaching its
apex in the centre of the Earth (fig. 2). The general struc-
ture that can be reconstructed from the hints in the lines
of the Poet is a kind of real stepped amphitheatre
(MANCINI, 1861), divided into nine circles gradually less
extensive, which terminate in the deep well of Cogito at
 “PER TREMOTO O PER SOSTEGNO MANCO”: THE GEOLOGY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO 97

the centre of the Earth. In this point, embedded, lies

Lucifer, who for a half projects towards the northern
hemisphere and from the navel (considered to be the
exact centre of the Earth in GIZZI, 1974) downward in the
southern one. According to INGLESE (2002) the position
of Lucifer at the centre of the Earth was common in
several theologians, among which certainly William Of
Auvergne. Prolonging the axis passing through Jerusalem
(actually through Mount Zion according to the analysis
by PECORARO, 1987) with the centre of the Earth, would
reach the point in the southern hemisphere where the
mountain of Purgatory lies entirely surrounded by the
ocean. The Purgatory will be reached by Dante and Virgil
through the natural burella, underground route that leads,
more or less in a straight line, from the legs of Lucifer to
the base of the mountain of Purgatory. In this regard, the
real interpretative revolution carried out by Dante is rep-
resented by removing the Purgatory from the underworld,
as differently found in the legend of the descent of the
Irish knight Owain (narrated in the Chanonica maiora by
Mattheus Parisius and in the Tractatus de Purgatorio
sancti Patricii by Henry Of Saltrey) in the fissure open by
St. Patrick, and make it a sort of stairway to Heaven (DI
FONZO, 1999). In the vision of Dante only the northern
hemisphere is occupied by land mass and is inhabited as
he could not yet have knowledge of Australia, America,
and south-central Africa. The land mass in the northern
hemisphere, represented by Europe, Asia and Africa, con-
stituted the so-called “gran secca” (‘large shoal’), with an
approximately semi-circular profile. The area, believed
inhabited, was enclosed by the triangle which had as its
vertices the “Isole Fortunate” (ancient name for Canary
Islands), the peninsula of Malacca (WSW of peninsular
Malaysia) and the modern Iceland (called Tule at the time
of Dante, see MANZI, 1917). The southern hemisphere was
imagined entirely occupied by the waters of the great
ocean. Dante borrows part of this subdivision directly
from Aristotle who considered the northern hemisphere
as inferior and seat of generatio and corruptio, while the Fig. 2 - Representation of the Inferno as an inverted cone, which
gradually narrows reaching its apex in the centre of the Earth and
southern hemisphere, where Dante places the mountain of divided into nine gradually less extensive circles (from PERTICARI &
Purgatory, was considered nobler (the same conception is MONTI, 1825, p. 2).
also found in Albertus Magnus, see ALEXANDER, 1986).
Differently from the Convivio and Questio de aqua et
terra, which have been conceived as works in prose with The sphere (‘ciel’) of which Dante speaks in these lines
their own organic unity and continuity in the presenta- is that of the Moon, or the heaven, which, in the Ptole-
tion, treatment and resolution of the concepts, the cosmo- maic system, appears to be the closest to the Earth and
logical elements of the Divine Comedy are widespread then the first which includes human beings, considered,
and often hidden behind short lines, sometimes only in agreement with the scala naturae, higher living
hinted to whet the curiosity of the educated reader. beings that “exceed” any other organisms (see also
Starting as early as Canto I, we find the famous GIZZI, 1974 and SAPEGNO, 1983). In the same Canto, a
lines (16-17): “guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle/ vestite little further down we find (lines 82-83): “Ma dimmi la
già de’ raggi del pianeta/ che mena dritto altrui per ogni cagion che non ti guardi/ dello scender qua giuso in
calle.” (I raised my head and saw the hilltop shawled/ in questo centro” (But tell me how you dared to make this
morning rays of light sent from the planet/ that leads men journey/ all the way down to this point of spacelessness).
straight ahead on every road). Calling the Sun “planet”, With the expression “questo centro” (literally “in this
that is, a body performing revolutions around the Earth, centre”), Dante means the Inferno, still in agreement
Dante immediately makes us understand his choice of with the cosmology reported briefly above, which saw
the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian system (albeit with some the Earth as the immobile centre of the Universe and
substantial changes and personal interpretations), as the Inferno as the centre of the same Earth. Equally at
cosmological structure of reference. In Canto II, starting Canto XXXII the Poet writes from line 7: “ché non è
with line 76 the Poet writes: “O donna di virtù, sola per impresa da pigliare a gabbo/ discriver fondo a tutto l’uni-
cui/ l’umana spezie eccede ogni contento/ di quel ciel c’ha verso,” (To talk about the bottom of the universe/ the way
minor li cerchi sui,” (O Lady of Grace, through whom it truly is, is no child’s play), thus underlining once again
alone mankind/ may go beyond all worldly things con- the identification of the bottom of the Inferno as the
tained/ within the sphere that makes the smallest circle). absolute centre of the cosmos.

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In Canto V we find a brief reference to the structure
conceived by Dante for his Inferno, as an inverted cone
amphitheatre. From line 1: “Così discesi del cerchio pri-
maio/ giù nel secondo, che men luogo cinghia,” (This way I
went, descending from the first/ into the second circle, that
holds less space). From the lines it is possible to go back
to the abyss imagined by the Poet, with circular steps,
which are narrowed proceeding downward (towards the
edge of the cone).
In Canto XXVI we find the immortal lines of the
“mad flight” (“folle volo”) of Ulysses, which prompted his
thirst for knowledge towards the unknown beyond the
Pillars of Hercules (from line 112):
“O frati”, dissi “che per cento milia/ perigli siete giunti
all’occidente,/ a questa tanto picciola vigilia/ de’ nostri sensi
ch’è del rimanente,/ non vogliate negar l’esperienza,/ di retro
al sol, del mondo sanza gente. (‘Brothers, ’I said, ‘who
through a hundred thousand/ perils have made your way to
reach the West,/ during this so brief vigil of our senses/ that
is still reserved for us do not deny/ yourself experience of
what there is beyond,/ behind the sun, in the world they call
unpeopled).
In this case, talking about the “mondo sanza gente”
(unpeopled world) Dante refers to the structure of the
Earth known at his time (see above), inhabited only in the
northern hemisphere where the “gran secca” was posi-
tioned, while it was considered covered by a vast ocean in
the southern hemisphere (hypothesis clearly stated in the
Convivio, SAPEGNO, 1983).
In Canto XXXII Dante speaks of the centre of the
Inferno (from his viewpoint also the centre of the Uni-
verse) and refers to the physical law according to which
all the weights are attracted towards the centre of the
Earth (lines 73 and 74): “E mentre ch’andavamo inver lo
mezzo/ al quale ogni gravezza si rauna,” (While we were get-
ting closer to the center/ of the universe where all weights
must converge). A reference to this topic is also found
starting from line 109 in Canto XXXIV:
Di là fosti cotanto quant’io scesi;/ quand’io mi volsi, tu
passasti ’l punto/ al qual si traggon d’ogni parte i pesi./ E se’
or sotto l’emisperio giunto/ ch’è contraposto a quel che la
gran secca/ coverchia, e sotto ’l cui colmo consunto/ fu
l’uom che nacque e visse senza pecca:/ tu hai i piedi in su
picciola spera/ che l’altra faccia fa della Giudecca. (and you
were there as long as I moved downward/ but, when I
turned myself, you passed the point/ to which all weight
from every part is drawn./ Now you are standing beneath
the hemisphere/ which is opposite the side covered by land,/
where at the central point was sacrificed/ the Man whose
birth and life were free of sin./ You have both feet upon a
little sphere/ whose other side Judecca occupies;).
From the original lines, we learn that Dante fell clinging
to Virgil along the body of Lucifer toward the midpoint of
his monstrous body, or centre of the Earth, represented,
according to SAPEGNO (1983), by the head of the femur.
Once past this point, the two pilgrims are already in the
southern hemisphere; then the centre of the Earth, mis-
takenly considered the point where the gravity is greatest,
begins to attract Virgil, who tries to climb painfully
toward the mountain of Purgatory (from line 76):
Quando noi fummo là dove la coscia/ si volge, a punto
in sul grosso dell’anche,/ lo duca, con fatica e con angoscia,/
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M. ROMANO
volse la testa ov’elli avea le zanche,/ e aggrappossi al pel
com’uom che sale,/ sì che ’n inferno i’ credea tornar anche.
(When we had reached the point exactly where/ the thigh
begins, right at the haunch’s curve,/ my guide with strain
and force of every muscle,/ turned his head toward the
shaggy shanks of Dis,/ and grabbed the hair as if about to
climb-/ I thought that we were heading back to Hell.).
At the end of Canto XXXIV and then of the entire
Cantica, Dante explains through the words of Virgil the
formation of the Inferno and of the mountain of Purga-
tory (from line 121):
Da questa parte cadde giù dal cielo;/ e la terra, che pria
di qua si sporse,/ per paura di lui fe’ del mar velo,/ e venne
all’emisperio nostro; e forse/ per fuggir lui lasciò qui luogo
voto/ quella ch’appar di qua, e su ricorse». (When he fell
from the heavens on this side,/ all of the land that once was
spread out here,/ alarmed by his plunge, took cover beneath
the sea,/ and moved to our hemisphere; with equal fear/ the
mountain-land, piled up on this side, fled/ and made this
cavern here when it rushed upward.).
When he was expelled from the Empyrean, Lucifer
fell on the northern hemisphere (“da questa parte”, on this
side). The land emerging from the surface of the sea
shrank back “for fear” of the fallen angel forming the
cavity of the Inferno in the shape of an inverted cone (as
for the impact of a large asteroid). The land moved from
the impact flowed to the opposite hemisphere (southern
hemisphere) going to form the mountain of Purgatory
(see SAPEGNO, 1983; PETROCCHI, 1989; OSSOLA, 2012).
GEOMORPHOLOGICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL
ELEMENTS USED AS SIMILES AND ALLEGORIES
The importance of places and the contextualization of
the scene are fundamental elements of the poetic tale.
Dante seems to use real geomorphological metaphors,
using elements of the landscape to transmit the contents of
his poetic fiction. Starting from line 13 of Canto I, we find:
Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,/ là dove termi-
nava quella valle/ che m’avea di paura il cor compunto,”
(but when I found myself at the foot of a hill,/ at the edge of
the wood’s beginning, down in the valley,/ where I first felt
my heart plunged deep in fear,). In this case, the
dichotomy is identified by “quella valle” (the valley) which
represents the famous “selva oscura” (dark woods) of the
incipit, and the “colle” (hill) also called “dilettuoso monte”
(joyous mountain). From a symbolic point of view, in all
the classical commentaries to the Commedia the “selva”
(dark wood) represents a condition of moral and intellec-
tual aberration, while “il colle” (the hill) represents the
orderly and virtuous life (see also DE MARZO, 1864; GIZZI,
1974; PETROCCHI, 1989; INGLESE, 2002). The ascent of
the hill would then represent a sort of road to recovery
and redemption.
Starting from line 76 of the same Canto, the poet
mentions again the “dilettuoso monte” (joyous mountain):
Ma tu perché ritorni a tanta noia?/ perché non sali il
dilettoso monte/ ch’è principio e cagion di tutta gioia?»/
«Or se’ tu quel Virgilio e quella fonte/ che spandi di parlar sì
largo fiume?» (But why retreat to so much misery?/ Why
aren’t you climbing up this joyous mountain,/ the begin-
 “PER TREMOTO O PER SOSTEGNO MANCO”: THE GEOLOGY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO
ning and the source of all man’s bliss?/ “Are you then Virgil,
are you then that fount/ from which pours forth so rich a
stream of words?”).
In addition to the dichotomy dark wood/joyous
mountain (“selva/dilettoso monte”), in these lines we find
a second allegory derived from the natural landscape.
Dante, in fact, compares the talkativeness of his Master
and guardian Virgil to the spring of a large river, clearly
conveying the idea of words that literally flow like water.
In Canto II, Virgil says, addressing Beatrice:
non odi tu la pièta del suo pianto?/ non vedi tu la morte
che ’l combatte/ sulla fiumana onde ’l mar non ha vanto?
(Do you not hear the pity of his weeping,/ do you not see
what death it is that threatens him/ along the river the sea
shall never conquer?).
In this case the “fiumana” (river flood) is none of the
infernal rivers in particular (Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon
and Cogito), but represents evil and sin in general. The
Poet once again uses a naturalistic metaphor, stating
that the river in question is so bloated and powerful
that even the mighty waves of the ocean cannot get the
better of it.
In the famous Canto V, that narrates the tragic story
of two lovers Paolo and Francesca from Rimini, in order
to describe and contextualize Francesca’s native place,
the poet says (from line 97):
Siede la terra dove nata fui/ sulla marina dove ’l Po
discende/ per aver pace co’ seguaci sui. (The place where I was
born lies on the shore/ where the river Po with its attendant
streams/ descends to seek its final resting place.).
With “la terra” (the place) the Poet refers to the city of
Rimini, while the “marina” (the shore) indicates the
Adriatic coast. Once again Dante uses a geomorphologi-
cal-hydrogeological picture at a time of great poetry, to
contextualize a scene of the narrative.
Other elements and geomorphological processes of
the landscape, used as a source of allegory and metaphor,
are found in Canto VII (starting from line 22) where
Dante vividly describes the avaricious and the prodigals,
who are forced to come from opposite directions and
collide against each other:
Come fa l’onda là sovra Cariddi,/ che si frange con
quella in cui s’intoppa,/ così convien che qui la gente riddi.
(As every wave Charybdis whirls to sea/ comes crashing
against its counter-current wave,/ so these folk here must
dance their roundelay.).
The natural phenomenon used for similarity is the
“clash” of the waves of the Ionian Sea against those of the
Tyrrhenian Sea in the Strait of Messina, among the
“gorges” of Scylla and Charybdis. Such phenomenon was
already described in Virgil’s Aeneid (1783), in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (1587) and in Lucan (SAPEGNO, 1983).
In Canto XIV Dante speaks of the blasphemers, the
deniers of the gods, sodomites and usurers. The desolate
landscape, represented by an immense desert of sand, is
again borrowed from the real landscape:
Lo spazzo era una rena arida e spessa,/ non d’altra foggia
fatta che colei/ che fu da’ piè di Caton già soppressa. (This
wasteland was a dry expanse of sand,/ thick, burning sand,
no different from the kind/ that Cato’s feet packed down in
other times.).
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99
In this case, the poet alludes to the crossing of the
Libyan Desert carried out by the army of Cato Of Utica,
with references taken directly from Lucan (SAPEGNO,
1983). The sand, then, is not accidental or imaginary, but
it is precisely the one characterizing the Libyan desert,
read and imagined by the poet probably referring to the
classic texts.
In Canto XXIII, Dante refers to a true landslide mass
resting on the side of the “bolgia”. From line 133 we find:
Rispuose adunque: «Piú che tu non speri/ s’appressa un
sasso che dalla gran cerchia/ si move e varca tutt’i vallon
feri,/ salvo che ’n questo è rotto e nol coperchia:/ montar
potrete su per la ruina,/ che giace in costa e nel fondo soper-
chia». (He answered: “Closer than you might expect,/ a
ridge jutting out from the base of the great circle/ extends,
and bridges every hideous ditch/ except this one whose arch
is totally smashed/ and crosses nowhere; but you can climb
up/ its massive ruins that slope against this bank”).
In this scene, Virgil asks the devils about a passage that
would allow the two pilgrims to get out from the “Bolgia”,
without the help of demons. The demon (Malacoda) then
talks to them about the “ruina”, or a landslide mass that
form a much less steep slope. This geomorphological
accident can help the passage of two travellers, working
as a more gentle connection for the slope.
Beyond the examples quoted at length above, Dante,
in several passages of his Inferno, mentions and uses real
landscapes of the peninsula, seen during his exile or
otherwise read and known through the literature. Spe-
cific references to the landscape and to geological-geo-
morphological structures can be found-among others:
(i) in Canto XVI, where Dante describes the waterfalls of
the River Montone near San Benedetto dell’Alpe in the
Romagna Apennines; (ii) in Canto XX, where he describes
the alpine zone between Val Camonica and the locality of
Garda; (iii) again in Canto XX (from line 73) with a
detailed description of swampy areas along the course of
the Mincio River. In Canto XXVIII starting from line 74,
the Poet makes direct reference to the Po plain: “se mai
torni a veder lo dolce piano/ che da Vercelli a Marcabò
dichina.” (should you return to see the gentle plain/ declining
from Vercelli to Macabò). Dante conveys a clear picture of
the whole extent of the plain, which spreads from Vercelli
to the castle of Macabò, built by the Venetians in the
mouth of the Po Primario and holding a defensive func-
tion for ships trading between Ferrara and Ravenna. In
Canto XXXII, describing the bottom of the Hell (the cen-
tre of created universe) occupied by the frozen lake of
Cogito, the Poet refers to the Danube and the Don, and
mentions the skies of Russia. Dante asserts that the ice
that held the lake in a clamp was so thick and hard that it
would not have cracked even if a whole mountain had
fallen into the lake (from line 22):
Per ch’io mi volsi, e vidimi davante/ e sotto i piedi un
lago che per gelo/ avea di vetro e non d’acqua sembiante./
Non fece al corso suo sí grosso velo/ di verno la Danoia in
Osterlicchi,/ né Tanaí là sotto il freddo cielo,/ com’era quivi;
che se Tambernicchi/ vi fosse su caduto, o Pietrapana,/ non
avría pur dall’orlo fatto cricchi. (At that I turned around and
saw before me/ a lake of ice stretching beneath my feet,/ more
like a sheet of glass than frozen water./ In the depths of Au-
stria’s wintertime, the Danube/ never in all its course showed
ice so thick, /nor did the Don beneath its frigid sky,/ as this
 100
Fig. 3 - “Pania della Croce” in the Apuan Alps (the highest peak in
the “Gruppo delle Panie”) view from the “Voltoline” paths, which
leads from Levigliani to Mosceta (photo by Luca Pandolfi).
crust here; for it Mount Tambernic/ or Pietrapana would crash
down upon it/ not even at its edges would a crack creak.).
From SAPEGNO (1983) we know that, with the term
“Tambernicchi”, Torraca (a popular commentator of the
Commedia) indicated Mount Tambura in the Apuan Alps,
which is known in the ancient texts as “Stamberlicchi”.
SAPEGNO (1983) identifies “Pietra Pana” (‘Pietra Apuana’)
with the present-day Pania della Croce (fig. 3) which
belongs to the same mountain range.
As already highlighted by BOYDE (1984), the numerous
meteorological reminders in the Divine Comedy are drawn
primarily from the Metereologica of ARISTOTLE (2000),
without major changes in the interpretations. On the
other hand, as regards the processes and phenomena
which essentially include condensation and evaporation,
theories and explanations provided by Aristotle do not
basically differ much from the current interpretation.
Going back to Dante’s Inferno, in Canto V, starting from
line 31, we find:
La bufera infernal, che mai non resta,/ mena li spirti
con la sua rapina:/ voltando e percotendo li molesta. (The
infernal storm, eternal in its rage,/ sweeps and drives the
spirits with its blast:/ it whirls them, lashing them with
punishment.).
With only three lines, the poet succeeds in highlight-
ing a fundamental fact: the infernal storm “mai non
resta”, that is, it never stops and never allows objects
taken in charge to rest, in opposition to the real storm,
the one observable in the natural world. Then, through
his poetic invention Dante utilizes natural phenomena
and makes them supernatural to his liking, as an instru-
ment of his imaginary construction, however providing,
between the lines, the indication on the actual operation
and performance of the processes in nature.
In Canto IX, starting from line 64, the Poet describes,
we might say “scientifically”, the classic phenomenon of a
summertime hurricane:
E già venía su per le torbide onde/ un fracasso d’un
suon, pien di spavento,/ per che tremavano amendue le
sponde,/ non altrimenti fatto che d’un vento/ impetuoso per
li avversi ardori,/ che fier la selva e senz’alcun rattento/ li
rami schianta, abbatte e porta fori;/ dinanzi polveroso va
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M. ROMANO
superbo,/ e fa fuggir le fiere e li pastori. (and then, above the
filthy swell, approaching,/ a blast of sound, shot through
with fear, exploded,/ making both shores of Hell begin to
tremble;/ it sounded like one of those violent winds,/ born
from the clash of counter-temperatures,/ that tear through
forests; raging on unchecked/ it splits and rips and carries
off the branches/ and proudly whips the dust up in its path/
and makes the beasts and shepherds flee its course!).
With the expression “impetuoso per li avversi ardori”
(violent… …for clash of counter-temperatures) Dante
refers to the generation and increase in intensity of the
wind that is attracted to the areas of rarefied hot air and
with intensity that increases as the thermal imbalance
between the two atmospheric conditions. Even this simi-
larity finds precedents in the classical sources, particu-
larly in Virgil (Aeneid), Statius and Lucan and already
finds a “scientific” explanation in Aristotle (see SAPE-
GNO, 1983).
Still in reference to the wind, in Canto XXXIII the pil-
grim Dante feels a strong wind in proximity of Cogito
(from line 100):
E avvegna che, sí come d’un callo,/ per la freddura ciascun
sentimento/ cessato avesse del mio viso stallo,/ già mi parea
sentir alquanto vento:/ per ch’io: «Maestro mio, questo chi
move?/ non è qua giú ogne vapore spento?»/ Ed elli a me:
«Avaccio sarai dove/ di ciò ti farà l’occhio la risposta,/
veggendo la cagion che ’l fiato piove». (Although the bitter
coldness of the dark/ had driven all sensation from my face,/
as though it were not tender skin but callous,/ I thought I felt
the air begin to blow,/ and I: “What causes such a wind, my
master?/ I thought no heath could reach into these depths”./
And he to me: “Before long you will be/ where your own
eyes can answer for themselves,/ when they will see what
keeps this wind in motion”.).
The Poet is amazed to find a wind in the centre of
the earth, and then in the centre of the universe in the
Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system. In accordance with the
knowledge of his time, and probably from the reading of
texts by Ristoro D’Arezzo (see SAPEGNO, 1983), Dante
knows that no wind might blow in the centre of the
Earth, since the Sun’s heat, that raises from the soil the
vapours necessary to produce the movement of air, can-
not get there. The poet once again resorts to poetic inven-
tion, attributing the wind to the flapping of the colossal
wings of Lucifer, thus proving once again his ability to
skilfully use the data and the scientific knowledge of his
time within the narrative texture (and in support of com-
pletely fantastic elements such as the flapping of wings of
the Fallen Angel).
STRICTLY GEOLOGICAL REFERENCES
Among the several references to geological processes
and products in the Inferno, definitely some of the best
known are those to the earthquakes and seismic pheno-
mena in general.
The first direct reference is found in the end of Canto
III, after meeting with Charon, the boatman of Hell who
collects the shadows in his boat to ferry them across the
river. Charon refuses to allow Dante to pass, alive among
the dead, and immediately after such denial we find
(from line 130):
 “PER TREMOTO O PER SOSTEGNO MANCO”: THE GEOLOGY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO
Finito questo, la buia campagna/ tremò sí forte, che
dello spavento/ la mente di sudore ancor mi bagna./ La terra
lagrimosa diede vento,/ che balenò una luce vermiglia/ la
qual mi vinse ciascun sentimento;/ e caddi come l’uom che
’l sonno piglia. (He finished speaking, and the grim terrain/
shook violently; and the fright it gave me/ even now in
recollection makes me sweat./ Out of the tear-drenched land
a wind arose/ which blasted forth into a reddish light,/
knocking my senses out of me completely,/ and I fell as one
falls tired into sleep.).
The poet describes a real earthquake, and adds
another particular (the unleashed wind) which we
might call “pseudo-scientific” (but see GUIDOBONI &
VALENSISE, 2013), linked to the conception and know-
ledge of seismic phenomena in the time of Dante,
when seismic phenomena were considered to be driven
only by vapours or underground winds. Such theory is
already found in “La Composizione del Mondo” by
Ristoro D’AREZZO (1859) published for the first time in
1282, and can be traced back to the Arab physician Avi-
cenna (Ibn Sing, 980-1037), who essentially re-elabo-
rated the theories expounded by Aristotle. According to
ALEXANDER (1986) echoes of such a theory are also
found in Albertus Magnus and in Ovid. As stated
in BOYDE (1984), in Aristotle these phenomena are
explained by the theory of “dry exhalations”. According
to such a theory, heat can change both the ground into
dry gas and the water into wet gas. It follows, then,
that if the heat of the sun is sufficient, it can equally
produce dry gas and wet gas. According to Aristotle, dry
exhalations may be generated underground (it is also
expected that wet exhalations reach the underground
from the surface) and their passage through the “veins”
of the earth would cause earthquakes. Depending on
the feasibility of the passages in the subsoil, the inten-
sity of the earthquake will be higher or lower and the
phenomenon may also occur with the movement of
water and stones.
The second direct reference to the earthquakes is
found in Canto XXI. Virgil interrogates the demon Mala-
coda to find a passage to leave the fifth “Bolgia”. The
demon mixes a series of partial truths and lies and refers
to the two poets that, even if the pass is collapsed, there
is a viable passage nearby. Actually this last results in
a lie, since all the arcs above the sixth “Bolgia” collapsed
at the same time due to the earthquake that, as one will
discover later, was caused by the death of Christ. From
line 112 we find:
Ier, piú oltre cinqu’ore che quest’otta,/ mille dugento
con sessanta sei/ anni compié che qui la via fu rotta. (Five
hours more and it will be one thousand,/ two hundred
sixty-six years and a day/ since the bridge-way here fell
crumbling to the ground.).
In this case Dante provides an important time refe-
rence for the “seismic phenomenon”. 1266 years and one
day (minus five hours) have passed since the earthquake
of Christ’s death caused the collapse of the bridge in the
sixth “Bolgia”. According to some authors (e.g. GIZZI,
1974; SAPEGNO, 1983), this is a key element in support of
interpreters who make Dante’s journey into the under-
world to start in 1300, the anniversary of the death of
Christ. Another reference to the earthquake is found in
Canto XXXI starting from line 106, where, speaking of
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101
Fialetre or Ephialtes – one of the giants who attempted
the rebellious climb against Jupiter (found in Virgil and
Horace, see SAPEGNO, 1983) – the poet states that no
earthquake was so powerful as the jerky and energetic
movement of the giant.
In Canto XII, we find the famous passage of the
Lavini di Marco, a group of Holocene landslides (OROM-
BELLI & SAURO, 1988) between Rovereto and Serravalle
all’Adige (fig. 4) – placed along the western slope of
Mt. Zugna Torta – with a volume of about 2×108 m3 and a
covered area of ~6.8 km2 (MARTIN et alii, 2014). MARTIN
et alii. (2014) have calculated a mean age for the Lavini di
Marco and Costa Stenda rockslides of 3000 ± 400 years
BP, considering the two slides as simultaneous.
The two travellers of Hell are coming down for a
steep and crumbling walk, that in Dante evokes the image
of the Adige valley. The Poet writes (from line 1):
Era lo loco ov’a scender la riva/ venimmo, alpestro e, per
quel che v’er’anco,/ tal, ch’ogni vista ne sarebbe schiva./ Qual
è quella ruina che nel fianco/ di qua da Trento l’Adige per-
cosse,/ o per tremoto o per sostegno manco,/ che da cima del
monte, onde si mosse,/ al piano è sí la roccia discoscesa,/
ch’alcuna via darebbe a chi su fosse;/ cotal di quel burrato
era la scesa; (Not only was that place, where we had come/ to
descend, craggy, but there was something there/ that made
the scene appalling to the eye./ Like the ruins this side of
Trent left by the landslide/ an earthquake or erosion must
have caused it/ that hit the Adige on its left bank,/ when, form
the mountain’s top where the slide began/ to the plain below,
the shattered rocks slipped down,/ shaping a path for a diffi-
cult descent/ so was the slope of our ravine’s formation.).
As pointed out by SAPEGNO (1983), the term “alpestro”
indicates in Dante a “mountain” in a generic way, without
necessarily referring to the alpine system (indeed in some
passages it is used to indicate precisely the Apennines; in
some cases with the Apennines he instead means the
Alps). With regard to the interpretation of landslides at
Rovereto, according to SAPEGNO (1983), Dante used as a
source a work by Albertus Magnus where the author spoke
of the possible phenomena that trigger landslides, including
water erosion (“per sostegno manco”) or earthquakes (“per
tremoto”). Albertus Magnus cites the example of the Lavini
di Marco and is inclined to consider the erosion that
undermines the rocks at their base, rather than a seismic
event (SAPEGNO, 1983). It should be emphasized once
again that, while within the context of the underworld,
and then of the poetic fiction, the ruin on which the
pilgrims walk is attributed to a supernatural phenomenon
(the earthquake caused by the death of Christ), in speak-
ing of the real world (the area of Rovereto) Dante once
again provides the interpretations given by the science of
his time, remarking implicitly the difference between
poetic imagination and phenomenological reality. Starting
from line 28 of the same Canto we find:
Cosí prendemmo via giú per lo scarco/ di quelle pietre,
che spesso moviènsi/ sotto i miei piedi per lo novo carco.
(And so we made our way down through the ruins/ of
rocks, which often I felt shift and tilt/ beneath my feet from
weight they were not used to.).
The poet admirably succeeds in giving the idea of the
landslide body, with blocks disconnected from each other
which move under his feet. In fact Dante, being alive, can
still impress a weight on those stones which have not
 102
Fig. 4 - The group of Holocene landslides known as “Lavini di Marco” between Rovereto and Serravalle all’Adige: A) and B) Examples of
detachment niche; C) and D) Landslide mass (photos by Massimo Bernardi).
moved anymore since the fall. In the lines that follow, the
poet sets out clearly the connection between the ruin and
the earthquake connected to the death of Christ.
Strangely, in Dante’s Inferno there are scarce references
to volcanoes and related phenomena, as one might instead
expect considering the classic iconography of the under-
world dominated by fire. In Canto XII, the poet writes of
the bubbling Phlegethon river, but describes it as a river of
boiling blood. Even though the description could in all
respects remind us of a river of bubbling lava, however,
there is no direct reference to volcanoes. SAPEGNO (1983)
finds a recall and a memory in Virgil’s Aeneid (1783),
where the Phlegethon is represented by a stream of real
fire. Differently, a direct reference to the volcanoes in the
Inferno is found in Canto XIV where Dante speaks of the
Cyclops, who, according to mythology, worked with Vul-
can in the forge of Mongibello, ancient name that indicated
the Etna volcano. Even in agreement with STOPPANI
(1865), very likely the direct observation of volcanic
eruptions would have no doubt helped Dante to represent
the fires of City of Dis and the nature of the boiling
Phlegethon with a greater evocative force. According to the
author, the century of the Florentine Poet coincides with a
phase of rest in the activity of Vesuvius, which, in the
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words of the author “slept a sleep of almost five centuries”
(“dormì un sonno di quasi cinque secoli”), with a single
eruption recorded in 1139. With regard to Etna, STOPPANI
(1865) reports that a highly energetic eruption took place
in 1321, the exact year of Dante’s death, or perhaps in 1323
as indicated by Gemmellaro (see STOPPANI, 1865).
Again in Canto XIV Dante and Virgil pass through the
sandy desert (“rena arida e spessa”) walking along the
bank of a bubbling stream, which derives from Phlegethon
(from line 76):
Tacendo divenimmo là ’ve spiccia/ fuor della selva un
picciol fiumicello,/ lo cui rossore ancor mi raccapriccia./
Quale del Bulicame esce ruscello/ che parton poi tra lor le
pettatrici,/ tal per la rena giú sen giva quello./ Lo fondo suo
ed ambo le pendici/ fatt’era ’n pietra, e’ margini da lato;/ per
ch’io m’accorsi che ’passo era lici. (Without exchanging
words we reached a place/ where a narrow stream came
gushing from the woods/ its reddish water still runs fear
through me!;/ like the one that issues from the Bulicame,/
whose waters are shared by prostitutes downstream,/ it
wore its way across the desert sand./ This river’s bed and
banks were made of stone,/ so were the tops on both its
sides; and then/ I understood this was our way across.).
 “PER TREMOTO O PER SOSTEGNO MANCO”: THE GEOLOGY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO 103

Here the Poet again uses a real geological setting to

explain to the reader the characteristics of the infernal
stream, immediately giving a clear and instant picture of
what is in front of the two pilgrims of the underworld. Dante,
in fact, mentions the well-known hot springs located near
Viterbo, known by the name of Bullicame (fig. 5). In addition
to bubbling water, typical of sulphurous environments, the
Poet provides another interesting geological evidence.
Describing the infernal stream, the Poet says that, as
for the Bullicame, the bottom and the edges were made of
stone (“Fatt’era ’n pietra, e’ margini da lato”), thus resulting
hardened compared to the sandy sediment just crossed by
the two travellers. In relation to this element, SAPEGNO
(1983) considers absurd the interpretation that the edges
had become as hard as stone due to the incrustations
deposited by the “vermilion boiling”, and deems it not con-
ceivable from the scientific point of view. However, this
seems to be just the correct explanation, since the edges of
the Bullicame active thermal spring are exactly formed by
encrustations of hydrothermal travertine (defined “calcare
incrostante” in STOPPANI, 1915), with deposition of carbonate
catalysed by the action of microbiological activity (see
FOLK, 1993; DI BENEDETTO et alii, 2011). In agreement
with this interpretation of the poetic passage, FOLK (1993)
claims, referring to the lines of the Inferno given above:
“surely one of the earliest described examples of carbonate
diagenesis” (1993, p. 990). Dante once again surprises us,
since he is much closer to the scientific reality of the phe-
nomenon than his modern exegetes.
Returning to the hydrogeological field, in Canto XV,
to describe the hardness of the infernal banks on which
the two travellers are walking, the Poet mentions the
dams built by the Flemish against the impetuosity of the
ocean and levees erected along the river Brenta by the
Paduans, to defend themselves from the floods triggered
by melting snow in spring (from line 1):
Ora cen porta l’un de’ duri margini;/ e ’l fummo del
ruscel di sopra aduggia,/ sí che dal foco salva l’acqua e li
argini./ Quale i Fimminghi tra Guizzante e Bruggia,/
temendo il fiotto che ’nver lor s’avventa,/ fanno lo schermo
perché ’l mar si fuggia;/ e quale i Padoan lungo la Brenta,/
per difender lor ville e lor castelli,/ anzi che Chiarentana il
caldo senta; (Now one of those stone margins bears us on/
and the river’s vapors hover like a shade,/ sheltering the
banks and water from the flames./ As the Flemings, living
with the constant threat/ of flood tides rushing in between
Wissant/ and Bruges, build their dikes to force the sea
back;/ as the Paduans build theirs on the shores of Brenta/
to protect their town and homes before warm weather/
turns Chiarentana’s snow to rushing water;).
According to SAPEGNO (1983), Dante had probably
never directly seen the dams of Flanders. The poet could
have used the more familiar image evoked by the bank of
the Brenta, and then extended his poetic imagination to
the areas of Flanders. For its incisive character, this
episode of the Inferno captures also the interest of
Charles Lyell, which makes mention of it in the part of

Fig. 5 - The Bullicame active thermal spring near Viterbo (central

Italy): A) and B) One of the hydrothermal pools; the “hardened” edges
described by Dante are clearly visible, made of hydrothermal travertine
encrustations; C) A particular of the hydrothermal travertine deposit
(photos by Valentina Rossi).

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 104
his Principles which deals of hydrogeology and river regu-
lation in the broad sense (see below).
In Canto XIX, Dante and Virgil observe at the third
“Bolgia” the simonists – those who sold sacred things for
cash in life, in imitation of Simon Magus – driven into the
ground upside down. Dante is attracted to the hole
assigned to the Popes, where for the moment Nicholas
III, which led to the illegal enrichment of the Orsini fam-
ily, remains upside down. Soon his place will be taken by
Boniface VIII (who will then be replaced by Clement V)
and Nicholas III will slide down where the previous
simonist popes are. From line 73 we find:
Di sotto al capo mio son li altri tratti/ che precedetter me
simoneggiando,/ per le fessure della pietra piatti. (Beneath my
head are pushed down all the others/ who came, sinning in
simony, before me,/ squeezed tightly in the fissures of the rock).
As reported by Dante, the old popes, once slipped
down, are arranged horizontally between the rocks. With
the term “piatti” SAPEGNO (1983) means “flat” between
the fissures of the rocks (not squeezed as in the transla-
tion by MUSA (1995). It is likely, however, that even using
the term “fissures”, Dante had actually in mind any kind
of fissures breaking the rocks.
REFERENCES TO SPECIFIC TYPES OF ROCKS
Although geological elements of the landscape, inclu-
ding the types of sediment or rock walls and ravines of
the infernal amphitheatre, continuously recur as a struc-
tural element of Dante’s construction, in some cases a
direct reference is made to particular kinds of rocks that
characterize the Italian territory. For example, in Canto
XV the Poet, launching a historic invective against his
Florence (and in particular against the Florentines) by
which he was exiled and forced to flee, states (from line 61):
Ma quello ingrato popolo maligno/ che discese di Fiesole
ab antico,/ e tiene ancor del monte e del macigno (But that
ungrateful and malignant race/ which descended from Fiesole
of old,/ and still have rock and mountain in their blood,).
In this famous passage, the Poet mentions the term
“macigno” most likely to denote a characteristic element
of the landscape in which the “ungrateful” Florentine
people lived, and follows the legend that Florence was
founded by the Romans after the destruction of Fiesole
which had chosen to side with the faction of Catiline.
SAPEGNO (1983), using the exegesis of Boccaccio, considers
the term “macigno” as an attribute and not as a noun, i.e.
to indicate the hard and not pliable character of the civil
custom. Actually, it is not to be ruled out that, by men-
tioning the term “monte” first, Dante refers precisely to
the kind of rocks represented by large outcrops in the
Tuscan territory (but also in Liguria, Emilia Romagna,
Umbria and Lazio). “Macigno” is in fact a classic term
of Italian lithostratigraphy, which indicates a very thick
succession – up to 3000 m – formed in large part by fine
to very coarse silicoclastic sandstone. These deposits are
now formally referred to as Macigno Formation, with a
Late Rupelian to Medium-Late Aquitanian age (FALORNI,
2014). According to FALORNI (2014) the use of the term is
very old, with the use in the official cartography as early
as the first edition of the Foglio 97 by Lotti and Zaccagna
in 1903. In fact, references to the “Macigno” as a litho-
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M. ROMANO
stratigraphic term are already found in the Musaeum
Metallicum by Ulisse Aldrovandi (published posthu-
mously in 1648, see VAI & CAVAZZA, 2006) and in a 1768
work by Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (see below). Thus,
probably in Dante is found one of the first – if not exactly
the first – written references to the geological term.
The English translation is therefore unsatisfactory, con-
sidering the term “macigno” as simply “rock” and thus
losing its true shade of meaning.
In Dante’s Inferno could not absolutely miss a reference
to the famous Carrara marble. The poet mentions it in
Canto XX where, in the fourth Bolgia, the magicians, sooth-
sayers and astrologers are punished. From line 46 we find:
Aronta è quei ch’al ventre li s’atterga,/ che ne’ monti di
Luni, dove ronca/ lo Carrarese che di sotto alberga,/ ebbe
tra’ bianchi marmi la spelonca/ per sua dimora onde a
guardar le stelle/ e ’l mar non li era la veduta tronca. (Back-
ing up to this one’s chest comes Aruns/ who, in the hills of
Luni, worked by peasants/ of Carrara dwelling in the val-
ley’s plain,/ lived in white marble cut into a cave,/ and from
this site where nothing blocked his view/ he could observe
the sea and stars with ease.).
Aronte or Arunte is the Etruscan who predicted the
war between Pompey and Caesar and the victory of the
latter, while “Luni” represents the ancient Etruscan town
situated at the mouth of the Magra River from which
Lunigiana took its name. The interesting term is “ronca”
that would indicate the activity of deforesting and tilling
the land occupied by the people of Carrara, when the
marble industry had not yet reached its importance
(see SAPEGNO, 1983). In fact, the metamorphic limestone
is not quoted as carved stone, but as a constituent of
the cave of Arunte, in a still wild and rugged landscape.
Among the rocks mentioned in the Inferno, in Canto
XXIV we find reference to the “elitropia” or “eliotropio”
(heliotrope). Dante and Virgil arrive at the top of the “Bol-
gia” embankment, and, looking down, see the spectacle of
snakes tangled in large quantities; among the snakes, naked
and frightened, roams the race of robbers. From line 91:
Tra questa cruda e tristissima copia/ correan genti nude
e spaventate,/ senza sperar pertugio o elitropia:/ con serpi le
man dietro avean legate; (Within this cruel and bitterest
abundance/ people ran terrified and naked, hopeless/ of
finding hiding-holes or heliotrope./ Their hands were tied
behind their backs with serpents).
In the lapidary, the heliotrope (or Lapis Heliotropius
in CORSI, 1828) – a variety of chalcedony, i.e. compact
microcrystalline quartz – was referred to as a stone, having
the virtue of making those who possessed it invisible and
heal from the venom of snakes. We find references to the
heliotrope in Pliny (see CORSI, 1828), in Boccaccio in the
“Novella di Calandrino” and in the Decameron, and it is
mentioned several times in works on natural history or of
strictly geological issue (e.g. BOSSI, 1795, 1819; BRU-
GNATELLI, 1796; BROCCHI, 1811; CORSI, 1828; WINCKEL-
MANN, 1831; CATULLO, 1833).
REFERENCES TO DANTE’S INFERNO
IN THE GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE
References to the Divine Comedy and in particular to
Dante’s Inferno are found in several works dealing with
 “PER TREMOTO O PER SOSTEGNO MANCO”: THE GEOLOGY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO
naturalistic or strictly geological issues. An exhaustive
search in these terms is almost impossible and is beyond
the scope of the present paper. Only a few examples will
then be provided with direct quotation to Dante’s work,
basically between the 18th and 19th centuries.
Although GARBASSO (1916) argues that the 18th cen-
tury did not understand Dante and that only during the
19th century the Divine Comedy became the object of
passionate study by scientists (see also FRIEDERICH,
1949 and PETROCCHI, 1989 for the decline of Dante’s
fortunes between the end of the 16th and the beginning
of the 18th century), some references to the Florentine
Poet are found in the work of Italian scientists of the
18th century.
A first reference is found in Antonio VALLISNERI
(1721) where, in disagreement with the theory of a single
flood (see VAI, 2003a; LUZZINI, 2009; ROMANO, 2013,
2015), he states that the plants and trees often found
buried underground need not necessarily be linked to a
deluge or flood, but may have been swept away and
buried even by landslide movements (defined “lavine” or
“ammottamenti” in the original text, VALLISNERI, 1721,
p. 53). In this regard, Vallisneri literally quotes the lines
of Dante of Canto XXII already discussed above.
Another reference is found in Targioni TOZZETTI
(1768) where, speaking of the hardness of different types
of rocks in Tuscany, the author states that the hardest
ones are defined “Forti” or “Macigni”, remarking that the
last term had already been used by Dante in his Inferno.
In the text Targioni Tozzetti quotes literally from the pas-
sage pronounced by Brunetto Latini (Dante’s teacher and
mentor) in Canto XV of Inferno, already discussed above,
and says that the term “Macigno” is very old and with
such a word were indicated, for many centuries, the
“Pietre di Fiesole” (Stones of Fiesole). In the same work
Targioni Tozzetti speaks of the locality “Bagni di Monte
S. Giuliano” once called “Monte Pisano”, of which, in
agreement with the author, Dante speaks in Canto
XXXIII of the Inferno (from line 28): “Questi pareva a me
maestro e donno,/ cacciando il lupo e’ lupicini al monte/
per che i Pisan veder Lucca non ponno.” (I dreamed of this
one here as lord and huntsman,/ pursuing the wolf and the
wolf-cubs up the mountain/ which blocks the sight of
Lucca from the Pisan). Even according to SAPEGNO
(1983), the “monte” (mountain) would represent the
Monte Pisano or of S. Giuliano.
In 1824 Antonio Bellenghi publishes his “Ricerche
sulla Geologia” (Research on Geology) in which he accepts
the hypothesis of species extinctions – already present in
BROCCHI (1814) – and considers catastrophic events,
with a complete extinction followed by new creations of
species (see ROMANO, 2015). As already seen in VALLI-
SNERI (1721), also BELLENGHI (1824) criticizes the
hypothesis of a single deluge, and uses the ammonites as
elements that indicate, necessarily, marine deposits older
than “mosaic flood” (ROMANO, 2015). BELLENGHI uses a
line from Dante’s Inferno as an opening of his work: “è chi
creda/ più volte il mondo in caòs converso;” (whereby,
some have maintained, the world/ has more than once
renewed itself in chaos; Inferno, Canto XII). The term
“chaos” is probably mentioned to allude and put the right
emphasis on the various catastrophic periods, needed to
get rid of some species and make others appear, as acts of
deliberate creation (theistic conception). All the intel-
lectual efforts of the author are aimed, essentially, at an
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105
attempt to reconcile the new discoveries of the geology of
his time with the revealed truth of the Sacred Scriptures
(see ROMANO, 2015).
In describing the hydrographical status of the River
Adige, and the alleged diversion of the watercourse over
time, Tommaso Antonio CATULLO (1834, p. 26) mentions
once again the Dantesque ruin of Lavini di Marco, argu-
ing that the enormous mass of the landslide must have
substantially changed the course of the river.
References to the Divina Commedia are also found in
the famous Principles of Geology. Charles Lyell spent a lot
of time in Italy (VAI, 2009, p. 197) and thoroughly knew
the work of Dante. Very likely, Lyell was introduced into
the world of the Florentine poet almost by osmosis, since
his father translated and commented DANTE’s Vita Nova
and Convivio, including in his comments also long discus-
sions on the Divine Comedy (LYELL, 1842). A first reference
to Dante is found in the historical account of the Princi-
ples (1867, tenth edition), and in particular in the section
that considers the contributions in geology by James Hut-
ton. According to Lyell, one of the major contributions of
the Scottish geologist is the recognition of the granite as
an intrusive rock and not as a sedimentary rock. As
reported by Lyell, Vallisneri brought to light that certain
types of rock were completely deprived of organic
remains, and so were interpreted as deposits formed
before the creation of living beings (such rocks were
called “primitive”). Concerning this hypothesis, LYELL
(1867, p. 76) wrote: “The same tenet was an article of faith
in the school of Freyberg: and if anyone ventured to doubt
the possibility of our being enabled to carry back our
researches to the creation of the present order of things,
the granitic rocks were triumphantly appealed to. On
them seemed written, in legible characters, the memorable
inscription: “Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create/ se non
eterne’ ” (Before me nothing but eternal things/ were made,).
The famous lines of Dante’s Inferno are then used by Lyell
as metaphorical warning for those who dared question
the primitive character of the granitic rocks, before the
crucial contribution of Hutton.
A second reference to the Inferno in the Principles is
found in the section where Lyell writes about the practice
of river embankment, using as an example the rivers Po
and Adige. The author reports that the Po and the Adige
over time have changed several times their course and, to
prevent flooding and destruction of countries, a general
system of embankment has been adopted, with the major
rivers and their tributaries “now confined between high
artificial banks” (1867, p. 423). However, explains Lyell,
although a greater portion of sediment reaches the sea
with such a system, part of the sediment that naturally
would be deposited for flooding in the alluvial plain are
instead deposited on the bottom of the channel, thus
decreasing its section. So, in order to prevent the
enlarged rivers to overflow with catastrophic results with
the arrival of spring, it is necessary to further raise the
embankments. According to Lyell the practice of embank-
ment was adopted in Italy as early as the thirteenth cen-
tury, and, as proof of his claim, he cites the passage of
Dante’s Inferno – already described above – in which the
poet speaks of the dams built by the Flemish and by the
Paduans along the river Brenta (Inferno, XV, 1-9).
Numerous and repeated citations and references to
Dante’s Inferno are found in the famous work “Il Bel
Paese” by the priest, geologist and Italian patriot Antonio
 106
STOPPANI (1915, first edition published in 1876). In the
work, organized in the form of 32 educational conversa-
tions about geology and natural sciences in front of a fire-
place, Stoppani displays, from north to south, all the natu-
ralistic and landscape beauties of Italy, using in several
passages direct quotations of Dante’s lines. We could even
say that, for various conversations, the author seems
almost to follow the route envisioned by the Florentine
Poet, reporting the real places used by Dante as similari-
ties for his Comedy. The quotations are really numerous
and only a few will be listed here: (i) describing a land-
slide, Stoppani refers to the Dantesque ruin of Canto XII;
(ii) writing of a meeting of the Italian Alpine Club (of
which he was the first president) during which it was
necessary to cross a lake, the author cites the boat of
Charon and the episode of Canto III; (iii) mentioning
some frogs that had got frozen in a vase where they were
put for an experiment, he cites the damned that Dante
imagined frozen and completely immersed in the ice of
the Giudecca in Canto XXXIV; (iv) he mentions several
times the lines of Count Ugolino talking about the
cramped cabin of a steamer and about the island of Gor-
gona; (v) treating of pitch and oils, in particular in rela-
tion to the Lesser Antilles, Stoppani literally mentions
and quotes the famous passage of the arsenal of Venice in
Canto XXI (the episode is also mentioned on p. 297, when
the author speaks of “mud volcanoes”); (vi) treating of
Carrara marble, he quotes the famous passage of the
Inferno about the cave Aurunte.
The Italian geologist and paleontologist Paolo Euge-
nio Vinassa de Regny (1871-1957) in addition to the great
contribution in the field of earth sciences and natural
sciences – with hundreds of publications ranging from
geochemistry to botany – was also a literary critic of
The Divine Comedy by Dante, with works that are still
reprinted. The best known contribution in this area is the
volume “Dante e Pitagora” (VINASSA DE REGNY, 2013)
where the author discusses in depth the Pythagorean
legacy in the work of Dante and meaning, in the poem, of
the magical symbolism associated to the numbers.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In the present paper, the geological elements and
references found in Dante’s Inferno have been briefly
treated, showing, once again, what an impressive work
the Divine Comedy is, a titanic and kaleidoscopic work
able to embrace all human knowledge at the beginning of
the fourteenth century. Speaking of the geological topic
sensu lato, in Dante’s Inferno there are references to
hydrogeology, earthquakes, structure of the mountains,
deposition of travertine and hydrothermal water, land-
scape modelling and landslide events, as well as to the
most diverse meteorological phenomena, to specific types
of rock, to the structure of the Earth and even of the
entire cosmos. All these elements are not reported in long
and tedious academic discourse, but are embedded in
poetic lines of rare refinement and beauty, often only
mentioned in order to stimulate the curiosity of those
who want to grasp their deeper meaning.
Dante used wisely and in a unique way the elements
of the natural world and of the landscape seen around
Florence and while travelling during his exile, to build the
foundational material on which the fiction of the journey
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M. ROMANO
to the underworld is based. The grandeur and mastery of
Dante lies precisely in being able to communicate, in
short lines, or with a minimum sequence of words, the
strong separation between scientific facts of the natural
phenomena and their licentious use for aesthetic, poetic,
political, and even ethical purposes. In the famous Canto
XII, Dante ascribes the collapse of the landslide in Hell
(“ruina”) to the earthquake occurred at the death of
Christ. However, speaking of landslides in the real world,
in particular of the area of Lavini di Marco, by the simple
phrase “per tremoto o per sostegno manco” (an earthquake
or failed support), he immediately made it clear that the
scientific interpretation of this phenomenon may be
related to two different processes: the earthquake on the
one hand, and the fall by gravity due to the erosion of the
slope base on the other hand (thus not considering at all
the supernatural cause). Similarly in Canto V, with the
expression “La bufera infernal, che mai non resta” (The
infernal storm, eternal in its rage) he wishes to emphasize
the supernatural character of the storm of the under-
world, opposing to it the storms of the real world, that do
not continue indefinitely but find an end with the chang-
ing weather conditions. As a further and last example, we
can mention the wind felt by Dante in Canto XXXIII. The
Poet says astonished: «Maestro mio, questo chi move?/ non
è qua giù ogne vapore spento?» (“What causes such a wind,
my master?/ I thought no heath could reach into these
depths”). Dante clearly shows to know the “scientific”
interpretation of Aristotle, who saw the wind as an essen-
tially superficial phenomenon, where the heat of the sun
can warm air masses differently triggering their move-
ments. In the centre of the Earth, away from the heat of
the Sun, these processes cannot be activated and Dante
resorts to the supernatural explanation of the fluttering
wings of Lucifer. However, notice again, the Poet resorts
to this imaginative invention only after clearly showing
his knowledge of the scientific explanation of the natural
phenomenon.
Although in some interpretations or text passages
Dante’s work may even sound ridiculous compared with
current knowledge in geology, we cannot afford the luxury
of being superficial. For example, the explanation of the
formation of the Hell cavity and of the Mountain of Pur-
gatory due to the falling of Lucifer, with the land moving
for “fear” of the rebel, might seem laughable, and could
lead to the conclusion that Dante, after all, has never
really tackled the problem of the structure of the Earth
and why the ocean and sea have different distributions.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. DANTE philoso-
pher – and especially we could say natural philosopher –
in the Convivio (ALIGHIERI, 1986) and even more in Que-
stio de aqua et terra (ALIGHIERI, 1986) directly and deeply
addresses the issue of the structure of the Earth and of
the distribution of emerged land and sea. According to
the Aristotelian theories, the ground, heavier than air and
water, had to go down to the centre of the Earth, and
form a perfect concentric sphere with no gaps. However,
this theory was strongly falsified by observation of the
real world, where land and oceans alternate each other
(and where the water, considered lighter, and then form-
ing a sphere set higher, is often topographically much
lower in relation to land). In his reconstructions and
interpretations, Dante insists on the principle of “geocen-
tric equilibrium”, where volumes and voids on the two
opposite hemispheres must be specular in order to com-
 “PER TREMOTO O PER SOSTEGNO MANCO”: THE GEOLOGY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO
pletely offset each other (see PECORARO, 1987 for a com-
plete discussion on this topic; it is natural to think of the
modern theory of isostasy, although a too close relation-
ship could be misleading; see also VAI, 2006). In the
model of “geocentric equilibrium”, the land concentrated
in one hemisphere represented a serious problem since
there was not an equivalent mass in the opposite hemi-
sphere as balancing mass (as already stated, the southern
hemisphere was considered completely filled by the
ocean). In order to explain this imbalance, Dante resorts
to the attraction of the Fixed Stars, which would have
caused, with their traction, the lifting of the lands in the
northern hemisphere (even in that case the mind goes to
current theories of solid tides and to the influence of the
Moon and Sun on plate tectonics and geodynamics; see
RIGUZZI et alii, 2010; DOGLIONI et alii, 2011). This example
indicates how Dante does not simply accept the theories
of Aristotle, using and transmitting them in his writings,
but analyses deeply and critically the issues related to
geology sensu lato, considering and preferring the phe-
nomenal datum (e.g. the actual distribution of dry land
and of the ocean compared to the model of Aristotle’s
concentric spheres) to the completely abstract theories.
Concluding, the monumental work of the Divine
Comedy is a window open on the 14th century, on how
the authors of that period assimilated the knowledge of
the philosophers of the ancient world, and how new
thoughts and new bases formed the necessary foundation
for subsequent scientific revolution.
As our predecessor Quintino Sella, in front of a geo-
logical landscape admirably described by the pen of
Dante, we will whisper the immortal lines of the summo
poeta, having in mind the scientific explanation of the
observed phenomenon but perceiving, at the same time,
the indescribable evocative power of Dante’s poetry. Para-
phrasing CENTOFANTI (1838), the words that will spring
from our lips passed through those of Lucretius, Catullus,
Cicero, Virgil, Livy and Tacitus, and in Alighieri and
Petrarch they became minister of Latin culture. A sudden
chill as a “tremoto” will cross our fibres, and once again
we will be grateful to be Italians.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Giorgio Inglese and Umberto Nicosia are warmly thanked for
their valuable comments and corrections on an earlier version of this
paper. The reviewers Gian Battista Vai and Carlo Sarti and the editor
William Cavazza are thanked for having considerably improved the
manuscript. Massimo Bernardi, Fabio Petti, Luca Pandolfi and
Valentina Rossi are thanked for providing photographic material.
Special thanks to Miriam Teodori for having improved the language.
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