Out of facts so general, Dante the poet, has created a Purgatory wholly
unique in the realms of literature, and amazingly definite as to place,
form, atmosphere, inhabitants and their activities. In the southern
hemisphere, at the very antipodes of Jerusalem, out of an ocean on which
there is no other land (according to Dante's system of cosmography)
springs the island of Purgatory, redolent with flowers, lovely with
music, peace keeping pace with penance over all the region. Not a flat,
unbroken plain is this island, but a mountain whose shores are washed by
the ocean, from which the earth forced from the interior by Lucifer's
fall, rises in a truncated conical structure. While its coast and the
land below the terraces are within the zone of air, its heights extend
into the sphere of fire and its crown is the Garden of Eden. The lowest
part of the mountain called Ante-Purgatorio is the abode of the
procrastinators and the excommunicated who put off their repentance to
the end and now must suffer a proportionate delay before they are
permitted to begin their ascent, their work of purification.
Purification begins only after the soul passes into Purgatory proper. At
the entrance is St. Peter's gate, guarded by an angel, who, with his
sword inscribes on the brow of the penitent seven times the letter P,
the first letter of the word Peccatum, signifying sin.
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