Inferno

Composed in the early fourteenth century as the opening cantica of the Divine Comedy, this narrative poem sends the pilgrim Dante, guided by Virgil, through the nine circles of Hell. Each level punishes a class of sin, from incontinence through violence to fraud and treachery, and the travellers speak with shades drawn from myth, scripture, and Dante's own Florence. The geography of the pit, the contrapasso that fits the penalty to the crime, and the political grief of exile organise the descent. The poem ends with the pair climbing past Satan toward the shore of Purgatory. It is epic theology and contemporary invective, not a prose treatise on damnation.

Bound in orange cloth blocked with a dark brown design. Dark red gilt titled slipcase.