Classical Sinners
This sinner was punished for his prideful attempt to physically access Purgatory while in the living world, as well as his involvement with the Trojan horse.
Who is Ulysses?
This sinner resides in the subcircle for those who betrayed their party, and yet, is hinted at by Dante as having enaged in something far worse: cannibalism of his own children.
Who is Count Ugolino?
Dante was exiled from this city to spend the rest of his life in Ravenna.
What is Florence?
This beast guards the circle of the avaricious and prodigal.
Who is Pluto (the accursed wolf)?
These are the three types of sin that constitute the organization of Hell.
What are incontinence, violence, and fraud?
This sinner, found in the second circle, is said to have killed herself by allowing an asp to bite her.
Who is Cleopatra?
Dante is shocked to see this sinner, his former teacher, being punished for sodomy.
Who is Brunetto Latini?
She was the love of Dante's life even though they were never actually together.
Minos, the judge of the damned, does this to declare where in Hell souls must reside.
What is, "wraps his tail around them as many times as the number of the circle they're in?"
This message appears over the gate leading into Hell.
This sinner was immortalized in a major Shakespearean work, marked by a famous phrase beginning with "Et tu..." (and Satan seems to think he's pretty tasty).
Who is Brutus?
This flaming sinner is quoted as saying "my works were not those of a lion but a fox."
Who is Guido da Montefeltro?
This is the nickname given to Dante for his unprecedented use of vernacular in writing the Commedia.
What is the Father of the Italian language?
These are the three components of Geryon's body.
What is a man's head, a reptile's body, and a scorpion's tail?
This marks the halfway point of Hell, as Dante and Virgil make the transition from sins of incontinence to sins of violence.
What is the City of Dis?
This sinner, punished for her flattery instead of her prostitution, is described by Virgil as digging excrement from under her fingernails.
Who is Thais?
This sinner is able to deceive Malacoda's vicious band of devils under the pretense that he will attract more sinners for them to torture.
Who is Ciampolo?
This is the specific division of the political party with which Dante was affiliated in Florence.
What is the White Guelphs?
These beasts keep the sinners in the 7th circle inside the physical space of punishment.
What are the centaurs?
These are the names of the three rivers that Dante and Virgil encounter in Hell.
What are the Acheron, the Styx, and the Phlegethon?
This prophetic sinner, punished in the later half of the Inferno, acted as a major character in several Greek epics, including Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, and Antigone.
Who is Tiresias?
This sinner is the only one of three "companions" that does not merge physical forms with a serpent in Canto 25.
Who is Puccio Sciancato?
The first person to call the poem the Divine Comedy instead of Dante's original Commedia (in 1360).
Who is Giovanni Boccaccio?
The three beasts that Dante encounters in the dark wood.
What are the leopard, the lion, and the she-wolf?
These are the four subsections of the ninth circle of Hell.
What are Judecca, Antenora, Caina, and Ptolomea?