Between 1304 and 1321, the poet Dante Alighieri was in exile, away from his beloved Florence. In those years, he wrote an epic, unrivaled masterpiece which we call La Divina Commedia, or simply the Commedia. The first of the Commedia’s three Canticles is Inferno; this is where your journey begins and where I will guide you, with this book. The Hell which Dante describes in Inferno is a vast, endless, eternal place which groups the lost souls – those who have strayed far from God and did not repent before death – and their jailers into nine Circles. A place with one way in, and one way out… A WARNING, TRAVELER: Dante was able to cross these Otherworldly places as a silent witness, protected by the unstoppable force of Divine Providence. We will have no such advantage.
