Practice question · Estimate
Purgatory is organised around the capital vices, one per terrace. How many terraces does the mountain have?
Estimate on a scale from 3 terraces (3) to 12 terraces (12).
Hints
- The number matches the traditional list of capital vices.
- Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust.
Show the answer
7 (answers within ±0.5 count)
Why
Seven, one for each capital vice, purged from the gravest upward: pride at the bottom and lust at the top. Note the reversal from hell, here lust is the lightest burden, since purgatory sorts by how much disordered love needs correcting, not by how far reason has been betrayed.
Practise Dante’s Divine Comedy: an Architecture of the Afterlife
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