The circles of Hell, distant from one
another, decrease in circumference as descent is made--the top circle
being the widest. Galileo estimates that Dante's Hell is about 4,000
miles in depth and as many in breadth at its widest diameter. Its
opening is near the forest at the Fauces Averni, near Cuma, Italy, where
Virgil places the site of the entrance of his Inferno.
Dante's Hell in its moral aspect is Aristotelian. Sins are divided into
three great classes, incontinence, bestiality and malice. Incontinence
is punished in the five upper circles; bestiality and malice in the City
of Dis, lower Hell. More particularly stated, Dante's scheme of
punishment in the underworld, not considering the vestibule of Hell,
where neutrals are confined, is as follows: 1, Limbo; 2, The Circle of
Lust; 3, Gluttony; 4, Avarice and Prodigality; 5, Anger, Rage and Fury;
6, Unbelief and Heresy; 7, Violence; 8, Fraud; 9, Treason.
In regard to this plan of punishment three things are to be noted: (a)
Though generally following the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, here
Dante, in his conception of Limbo, differs from his master. Our poet's
Limbo, wherein are the souls of unbaptized children and others who died
stained with original sin, but without personal grievous guilt, is a
much more severe abode than that of the Angelic Doctor.
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