The Physical Environment and structure of dante's inferno as Influenced by Vergil's Aeneid

by Nicolas Rapold

01
Erich Auerbach, Dante: Poet of the Secular World, trans. Ralph Manheim (Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1961) 88.

02
For clarity and convenience, "the Underworld" refers to the world in the sixth book of Vergil's Aeneid, while "Hell" refers to the one in Dante's Inferno.

03
The agents of death are many, ranging from Fames (famine or greed) to Bellum (war.) Their importance here lies more in establishing the shady, ominous atmosphere than for their function as characters.

04
Ruskin. Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. xii. sec. 6. 1906. (incomplete entry from Dante Database Project.)

05
Singleton. 1970. (incomplete entry from Dante Database Project.)

06
The notes accompanying Mandelbaum's translation touch on this idea: "...Hell was created shortly afterward [after the first day] to contain the newly created -- but fallen Lucifer and his cohorts" (p. 349).

07
Two exceptions exist (Inf. IX, 132, and Inf. XVII, 31), with commentators giving varied explanations. Tozer suggests that, in each case, "it was a declaration of adhesion to the way of right, in protest against certain special forms of sin..." Virgil and Dante encountered there: heresy and fraud (commentaries, DDB). Grandgent points out a similar turn by Aeneas in the Underworld (Aen. VI, 540) (commentaries, DDB). However, the implications (explained above) of the general rule still stand, regardless.

08
Morris Kline, Mathematics in Western Culture (New York: Oxford U P. 1953) 46.

09
Minos is one of several beasts or guardians that Dante borrows from Vergil's Underworld for his own purposes; Cerberus and Charon are two others. The slight changes by Dante (for example, making Cerberus even more vicious and possessing of some human attributes) and the function of each beast deserve discussion in a separate essay.

10
The description of Hell as a funnel or as a spiral never fully explains whether a hole in the center of all the concentric Circles (levels) exists, leading straight to the bottom, or if the spiral path coils along the walls, closed.

11
Tozer. 1901. (incomplete entry from Dante Database Project.)

12
The map accompanying Mandelbaum's translation helps one to visualize here.

13
F[letcher], A. S. "Fable, Parable, and Allegory," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1985, Macropaedia.

14
Anchises' speech (Aen. VI, 703-751) is unclear, but seems to indicate that some souls actually return to the world above.

15
Dante the pilgrim has divine sanction to go through Hell, by request of Beatrice. The point stands, however, that, if anyone tries to escape the supposed permanent fate of a stay in Hell, he will have to undergo some hardship.

16
Mr. Beall attributed this thesis to a former student, Steve Smith. It is plausible and more important than its bawdiness might first indicate.

17
Longfellow. 1867. (incomplete entry from Dante Database Project)

18
Singleton. 1970. (incomplete entry from Dante Database Project.)

19
Longfellow. 1867. (incomplete entry from Dante Database Project)