The growth of Western Civilization has taken many turns and gone through many phases that have all had an impact on where we are and what we have become today. One of the longer periods that lasted one thousand years was the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were a time of ignorance and fear, where no one was safe on their own and had to depend on a higher institution for survival. The most powerful institution in the Middle Ages was by far the Roman Catholic Church. Following the Middle Ages, Europe begins another age, known as the Renaissance, a period of enlightenment in which the veil that covered the eyes of man during the Middle Ages was lifted and Europe began to see the world in a new light. During the transition between these two periods, Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy was born and died. In the most famous book from this trilogy Inferno, he merged the Christian doctrines of the Middle Ages and the philosophy, mythology and metaphysics of the Ancient Greeks, thus creating a testament to his time.

Dante was born in Florence, Italy in 1265. He was born into a family of lesser nobility and death claimed his mother when he was very young and his father

Dante shows a very ironic view of the punishment of the punishments in Hell. In most of the circles the punishment found there is very symbolic of the crime itself. Through this Dante's concept of divine judgement is shown. The damned are forced to face the true nature of their sin, though a bit exaggerated, and painfully endure this for eternity. For example, the punishment for the lustful is that they are destined to be swept and tormented by a harsh wind that blows them around like dry leaves. This punishment is symbolic of the act of lust because people who engage in it allow themselves to be swept away by their sexual pleasures just as easily as the wind sweeps them away for eternity, and punished to endure this forever. In the case of thieves, they run around in a pit filled with venomous snakes. When the snakes bite them their forms turn to ashes then in time they gain their form only be bitten over and over again. The question is though, how does this relate to the act of stealing? A thief steals from people what is rightfully theirs without their permission. The thieves are now placed in the place of the victim, but instead of losing possessions they loose their physical form over and over again.

Some may look to writers like Dante to fill in the blanks we have about our own faith. One might even go as far to take it literally. It is at this point that we begin to loose the message. We must look at Dante's greater scheme of things to try and decipher the whole picture he was trying to paint, rather than looking at only a stroke here and there. Looking solely at Dante's Inferno we see a wrathful and hateful God, which goes against our Christian teachings of an all loving God. The message of Inferno was not to pinpoint evil souls, but to recognize that they put themselves in that position, and that God was only doing what had to be done, giving the reader the message that he should not try to damn himself as they did, but instead to rise to spiritual grace.

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Approximate Word count = 1842
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)