My interest in the circles of heaven was sparked following a visit to a William Blake exhibition when I was at University in Birmingham in the mid nineties. This prompted my first reading of Dante’s Inferno. You can enjoy a wealth of Blake’s illustrations in Birmingham Museums Archive. Blake also brings his own perspective to bear on some of Dante’s central themes, including sin, guilt, punishment, revenge, and salvation. The Blake archive is a fabulous source for illustrations not just of Dante’s inferno, but all things William Blake.
My interest was pricked further following visits to Chile, Mexico and Peru where I investigated details of Meso-American life and particularly their use of colour, shape and belief in their cardinal compass. These beliefs have largely been forgotten, or rather obliterated from history by the arrival of the Spanish and the Catholic church. I believe we can learn a great deal from them, not least the central belief that we are but one part of the universe and we need to live more harmoniously with it; instead of thinking it revolves around us.
- First Circle: Limbo. The first circle is home to the unbaptized and virtuous pagans. …
- Second Circle: Lust. …
- Third Circle: Gluttony. …
- Fourth Circle: Greed. …
- Fifth Circle: Anger. …
- Sixth Circle: Heresy. …
- Seventh Circle: Violence. …
- Eighth Circle: Fraud.
Purgatory,
Virgil cleanses Dante’s tear-stained face with dew and girds him with a reed belt, a symbol of humility.
As they halt their climb that night, Virgil explains that sin ultimately derives from distortions of love. In particular, people sin when their love is wrongly aimed (as in the case of pride, envy, and wrath), when their love lacks vigor (sloth), and when their love is too vigorous (avarice, gluttony, and lust). Virgil further explains that love is drawn by something external to a human being, and that a person’s free will enables him or her to distinguish between greater and lesser loves and to direct desire accordingly.
On the lowest terraces of Mount Purgatory, Dante and Virgil talk with some repentant excommunicate souls; souls who simply delayed repentance for their earthly sins until the last moment; and others who, because they died violently, had no opportunity to repent.
LAW OF PURGATORY no one can climb in the sun’s absence.
Purgatory’s gate; he and Virgil are then admitted by an angel. Before letting them in, the angel marks seven “P”s on Dante’s forehead with the point of his sword; the “P”s stand for the seven capital sins that souls in Purgatory strive to cleanse.
PRIDE On the first level of Purgatory proper, Dante sees souls doing penance for the sin of pride.
ENVY – eyes are sewn shut with wires, because they are doing penance for envy and accordingly must learn the virtue of generosity.
WRATH – Wrathful and are now being purged by the virtue of meekness. These souls do penance by fighting through an all-enveloping cloud of smoke.
SLOTH Running souls urge one another onward in greater haste and zeal to make up for their former idleness.
GREED – avarice, or greed—during life, he failed to look heavenward, so in Purgatory, he and his fellow penitents remain bound to the earth.
GLUTTONY souls are emaciated from fasting. Dante’s old friend Forese explains that the fruit and water in Purgatory aren’t quenching or satiating; instead, they elicit constant yearning in these souls as they’re taught to hunger and thirst for God.
LUST – must pass through fire. In fact, all souls must pass through this cleansing fire in order to exit Purgatory.
Spheres of Heaven/ paradise
- Moon – the inconsistent
- Mercury – the ambitious
- Venus – lovers
- Sun – Theoligists / teachers
- Mars – warriors
- Jupiter – the just
- Saturn – contemplatives
- Fixed stars – Faith, Hope, Charity
- Primium Mobile – heaven for angels
- Empyrean – Light/ GOD
External links
A guide to the circles of hell from litcharts https://www.litcharts.com/lit/purgatorio/summary
A guide to Dante’s spheres of Paradisio https://historylists.org/art/9-spheres-of-heaven-dantes-paradiso.html
An excellent guide to all things Dante from 100 Days of Dante. https://100daysofdante.com/the-9-levels-of-paradise/
A guide to William Blake’s illustrations for Inferno by Silvia Desantis is well worth exploring. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/image/desantis-blake/
A selection of Blake’s illustrations have recently been rehung at Tate Britain. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39/blake-illustrations-dante