A Few Stages of Dante's Journey Thru

Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise

 

I came to myself in a dark wood

Abandon all hope, you who enter

With Beatrice in the Empyrean

Love which moves the Sun and other Stars

 

 

"Dante with the hors d'oeuvres"

Inferno

Purgatory

Paradise?

Parable

Religion

Limbo

Angel

Literary Links

 

  

 

The work has inspired  many visual artists to offer illustrations over the years:

(Dante entering the Inferno with Virgil)

Hell, canto 3


(The inscription over the gate)


"Through me you pass into the city of woe:

Through me you pass into eternal pain:

Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric moved:

To rear me was the task of Power divine,

Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.

Before me things create were none, save things

Eternal, and eternal I endure.

All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

Such characters, in color dim, I mark'd

Over a portal's lofty arch inscribed."

 

(Translation)
 

Blake       animals

Lucia carrying Dante in his sleep, by Blake 1824-27:

Blake      

***

Botticelli - Drawing of Dante and Beatrice in the second planetary sphere of Paradise

Botticelli - Punishment of the Panderers, Flatterers

 

Botticelli - Map of the Inferno (the Abyss of Hell) - 1480/1490

Paradiso by M. Bernardino Daniello da Lucca (1568):

 

 

Gustave Doré:

Inferno c5 line 138

Paulo & Francesca 

 

 \

Purgatorio 8,

Dream of the Eagle

Paradiso 29, Dante & Beatrice

The just souls form the shape of an Eagle

  

 

 

   

The host of myriad glowing souls in the second realm

(Paradiso, Canto 5.Line 103)
 

 

Dante sees the formation of a golden ladder

and souls descending from the steps

(Paradiso 21.28)
 

Beatrice Enthroned

(Paradiso, canto 31, line 67)

 

Dante & Beatrice by Odilon Redon

 

Dali, Paradiso

Canto 19

Canto 25

Angel
 

Canto 28

 

Canto 33

 It's called a Comedy not cos it's funny or full of jokes but  because it has a happy ending unlike a tragedy. Dante's work was originally titled simply Comedia. 'Divine, was added by Boccacio.

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Giovanni Pacini - Sinfonia Dante in D-Minor

4 movements - Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, Triumphant Return to Earth

 

Rodin Gates of Hell in brass
 

PS: "though she will always be my Beatrice/ I'm too weak to yield Dante's pen" - Page 17 of my book, 'Songs of Frustrated Lust & Seduction'

PPS: Dante Alighieri, born Florence c.1265, died 14th Sept.1321, aged 56, Ravenna, Italy. 14th Sept 2021 was the 700th Anniversary of Dante's death.

Dante's death mask

click pic?

 

PPPS: Not forgetting La Vita Nuova, poems & prose about Dante's love for Beatrice, translated into English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

(Dante & Beatrice Painting: Henry Holiday, 1883)