THE PURGATORIO BY DANTE ALIGHIERI (DIVINE

COMEDY)
Assignment in English by GAGNO, Gabriel John P., IV – Saint Leander

Dante’s Purgatorio is a comedy by Dante Alighieri as

part of his Divine Comedy. It is the part when Dante
(who serves as narrator here), with the great Virgil
(the author of Aeneid) who serves as his guide,
emerges from the 9th Circle of Hell (where Satan is
bound and where Inferno ended) on Easter Sunday
under a starlit night. He saw the great Mountain of
Purgatory, in a lone island in the southern
hemisphere. He also stated that Hell was under
Jerusalem, created by the impact of Satan’s fall. It is
described that Mount Purgatory has 9 terraces –
two levels of Ante-Purgatory and 7 terraces of the
mountain itself – just as there are 9 circles in Hell.

In the shores of Purgatory, they met Cato the Younger. They also saw two types of souls: the
excommunicate and the late-repentant. One of the excommunicates was Manfred of Sicily. We
see him in Canto III:

"Now behold!" he said, and show'd

High on his breast a wound: then smiling spake.
"I am Manfredi, grandson to the Queen
Costanza: whence I pray thee, when return'd,
To my fair daughter go, the parent glad
Of Aragonia and Sicilia's pride;
And of the truth inform her, if of me
Aught else be told.

They met Sordello, who explained to them the Rule of Mountain, which says that when the sun
sets the souls can’t go to the light anymore and up as well. They continued up to Purgatory,
where they saw different types of souls.

In the end, the great Virgil, a sign of un-Godly humanities and philosophies, disappears from
Dante’s side. He can’t help Dante anymore in his approach to God. Then he saw Beatrice and
rebuked his sins and became his new guide in Paradiso. He drank in the rivers of Eden, and then
prepared for entry to the Paradise. Dante ended with the word stars, just as in Inferno.