Paintings by Gustave Doré; Paintings depicting Dante Alighieri; File:Gustave Doré- Dante et Vergil dans le neuvième cercle de l'enfer.jpg (file redirect) File:Gustave Doré - Dante et Virgile dans le neuvième cercle de l'Enfer.jpg; Category:Dante et Virgile dans le neuvième cercle de l'Enfer (Gustave Doré) The first circle of hell is depicted in Dante Alighieri 's 14th-century poem Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy. Inferno tells the story of Dante's journey through a vision of hell ordered into nine circles corresponding to classifications of sin. The first circle is Limbo, the space reserved for those souls who died before baptism The painting depicts the city of the Dead, surrounded by the marsh, encircled by walls of glowing metal. The damned who attack the boat are the wrathful and sullen, serving their eternal punishment in the swamp. Dante seems intimidated by the sight of the damned emerging from the mire and Virgil, his guide, comforts him. Virgil in the Purgatorio. Why Virgil? That question needed to be asked in relation to the Inferno, where Dante’s choice of the Roman poet as Dante’s guide - above any Christian figure, and above other, more obvious pagan thinkers such as Aristotle - was surprising enough. But to maintain Virgil as Dante’s guide through Purgatory is even The Inferno. Now we begin Dante’s great, poetic journey, midway through his life. We begin with Dante alone, his path blocked by ferocious beasts. “Midway upon the journey of our life. I found myself in a dark wilderness, for I had wandered from the straight and true.”. (Inferno I.1-3, translated by Anthony Esolen) Virgil prods Dante to look at other carvings. Moving past Virgil, Dante observes King David “the humble psalmist,” dancing and singing by a cart and oxen. Above him, his wife Michal scornfully looks down. Dante writes that these figures are so artful that they “made one sense argue ‘No’ / and the other: ‘Yes, they sing.’” In gluttony. In Dante’s 14th-century Inferno, gluttons are punished in the third circle of hell, where they are guarded and tortured by Cerberus, a monstrous three-headed beast, while lying face down in icy mud and slush. Dante also meets Ciacco—like Dante, a native of Florence—and they discuss the political strife…. Analysis: Canto XXXIV. Here in the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell, at the utter bottom, Dante comes to the end of his hierarchy of sins and thus completes the catalogue of evil that dominates and defines Inferno. Although Inferno explores most explicitly the theme of divine retribution and justice, the poem’s unrelenting descriptions aBf6dya.