Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the regions of Dante’s journey in the order he travels through them.
- The seven terraces, ascending
- The shore of Mount Purgatory
- The dark wood
- The nine circles, descending
- The gate of hell
- The Empyrean
- The celestial spheres
Hints
- The journey descends before it climbs.
- Hell goes down to the centre; purgatory is a mountain climbed upward; paradise ascends through spheres.
Show the answer
- The dark wood
- The gate of hell
- The nine circles, descending
- The shore of Mount Purgatory
- The seven terraces, ascending
- The celestial spheres
- The Empyrean
Why
The shape is a descent, a climb and an ascent, and the pivot at the centre of the earth is literal: Dante and Virgil climb down Satan’s body and find themselves climbing up, because gravity reverses at the centre. The geometry is doing theological work.
Practise Dante’s Divine Comedy: an Architecture of the Afterlife
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