As they can’t continue ascending Purgatory after dark, Dante and Virgil rest overnight in a valley with rulers. In the morning, Dante has been carried up to the gate into Purgatory itself.
Dante
The souls of those who delayed their repentance until shortly before death stay in Ante-purgatory for a whole lifetime. Among them is a virtuous wife who was murdered by her husband.
Dante and Virgil sail to the island-mountain of Purgatory, where they are met by Cato. They then start its ascent, illustrated by William Blake, Doré and others.
The very best paintings showing Dante’s journey through Hell, as described in his Inferno. William Blake, Corot, Doré, Koch, and more.
The final canto of the Inferno takes Dante to see Lucifer himself, after which Virgil guides him back to the surface of earth.
Count Ugolino was a leading and treacherous politician, who could only be trusted to betray others. He was left to die in prison of starvation.
From the fraudsters in the last rottenpocket of the eighth circle of Hell, they move on the ninth circle of the treacherous – a frozen lake. Paintings by Doré, Blake, Bouguereau, and Fuseli.
From thieves, Dante and Virgil move on to meet souls of those who had committed fraud, including Ulysses, a headless troubadour, and an alchemist.
From barrators, being hacked at by a pack of devils in their boiling tar, through hypocrites wearing habits weighted with lead, to thieves being tormented by snakes. Sheer hell.
A Bolognese man who pimped his sister, Jason of Golden Fleece fame, a couple of popes, and assorted astrologers – all suffering for their sins.
