Portrait: Dante Alighieri, portrait by Sandro Botticelli, 1495. Sandro Botticelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Philosopher1265–1321

Dante

Dante Alighieri was a Florentine poet and politician who wrote his masterpiece in exile. The Divine Comedy follows Dante himself through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, guided first by Virgil and then by Beatrice, and gathers the theology, philosophy, and politics of the Middle Ages into one journey, from a dark wood to the love that moves the sun and the other stars.

Philosophy of Religion

1 episode

Episodes

Dante

Abandon All Hope | The History of Hell From Hades to Dante

On Dante, Augustine & 3 more

The idea of hell did not enter history in one finished form. This reading follows Egyptian judgment, Hebrew Sheol, Greek Hades, the Zoroastrian bridge, Gehenna, and arguments in early Christianity about the reach and duration of judgment. Dante gives the tradition its most enduring imaginative architecture; Milton, Swedenborg, and modern philosophers change its terms again. The focus stays on ideas about justice and the human conscience, rather than scenes of torment.

Philosophy of Religion