A Visual Depiction of Dante’s

Inferno

• Class project for Dr.Hale’s World Literature

Course - Fall 1999 by Barbara Christopher
How to stay out of Hell

• “The Law of contradiction

is a basic principle of
Aristotelian logic: to repent
of one’s sin and to want to
commit it at the same time
is a self-contradiction.”
• from Allen Mandelbaum’s Translation-
Notes on Canto XXVIII

• image by Gustave Dore

The Inferno: Hell

• Hell spiraling downward.

Within each circle you
find sinners being
eternally punished for
their sins.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

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

• Image by Barry Moser

 The Inferno

• The layers of Hell

from the inside
looking down. The
deeper you descend the
more grievous the sin and
the grotesque and
offensive the
punishment.
• Image by Bartolomeo
 Canto I
Lost in the Dark Woods

• Dante, realizing he has

strayed from a true
path, finds himself lost
in the woods.

• Image by Gustave Dore

 Canto I
Lost in the Dark Woods

• Lost and confronted by 3 beasts.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli
 Canto III:
Gate to Hell

• William Blake’s
interpretation of Dante
and Virgil readying
themselves to enter the
Gate to Hell.
Canto III: Inscription Over Gates
of Hell
• Through me the way into the suffering city,
through me the way to the eternal pain,
through me the way that runs among the
lost. Justice urged on my high artificer; my
maker was divine authority, the highest
wisdom, and the primal love. Before me
nothing but eternal things were made, and I
endure eternally. ABANDON EVERY
HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.
Canto III: The Ferryman Charon

• Charon crossing the

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

• Image by Gustave Dore

Canto IV: Virtuous Pagans
Limbo

• First Circle - Limbo: These

souls created no evil. They
were good men who used
reason to live by but because
they were never baptized, they
reside in an area in Hell called
Limbo.
• Image by Gustave Dore
 Canto V

The next four slides tell the story of

Paolo and Francesca
Upper Hell - The Lustful
Canto V: Paolo
and Francesca

• Paolo and Francesca

reading the story of Sir
Lancelot.

• Image by Anselm Feuerbach

Canto V: Paolo and Francesca

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

• Image by Amos Cassioli

Canto V:Paolo and Francesca

• Paolo and Francesca

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

• Image by Ary Scheffer

 Canto V
Paolo and Francesca

• Image by Dante Rossetti

Canto VIII: The Wrathful and the
Fallen Angels

• The fallen angels

protecting the Wall of
Dis.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

Canto X: The Heretics

• Virgil guides Dante

through the heated
tombs of the Heretics.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

 Canto XIII:
The Violent against Themselves

• The woods of the

suicides. In life,
they had no desire
to be human, in
Hell they are
deprived of their
human form.
• Image by Federico
Zuccari
 Canto XVIII: The Panders,
Seducers and the Flatters

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

 Canto XIX: Simoniacs

• Image by Sandro Botticello

Canto XX: The Fortune Tellers
and Diviners

• Because they tried to see

so far into the future,
Fortune Tellers and
Diviners heads have
been twisted so they
they all face backward.

• Image by Sandro Botticelli

 Canto XXIII
The Hypocrites

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

• Image by Sandro
Botticello
 Cantos XXIV: Thieves

• Image by Sandro Botticello

 Canto XXIV:
Punishment of Thieves

• Naked humans in the

pit of snakes.

• Image by William Blake

 Canto XXVI
Evil Counselors

• Evil and
fraudulent
counselors
cloaked in
flames.

• Image by Sandro
Botticello
 Canto XXVIII
Sowers of Scandal

• Sowers of discord and

scandal perpetually
circling while demons
wound them. When
their wounds heal they
are wounded again just
as rumor wounds again
as it circles around.
• Image by Sandro Botticello
Canto XXIX: The Falsifiers

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

• Image by Sandro
Botticello
Canto XXIX: The Falsifiers

• The pit of disease - notice how Virgil and Dante

cover their noses to try to avoid the smell.
• image by William Blake
Canto XXXII: Traitors to Kin

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

• Image by Gustave Dore

 Canto XXXIV: Lucifer

• Lucifer with 3 heads gnawing on sinners.

• Image by Sandro Botticello
Canto XXXIV: Lucifer

• Lucifer with large bat

type wings in the
frozen lake of
Cocytus.

• image by Gustave Dore

 The Inferno

• Virgil guides Dante out of Hell using

Lucifer’s hair stairs and “It was from there
that we emerged to see - once more the
stars”.