Did Satan’s fall form hell? A persistent misreading in Inferno XXXIV

Abstract

Satan’s fall to earth is described at the end of the Inferno in a way that has led many readers, including eminent scholars from the 14th century to the present, to believe Dante imagined Satan’s impact as having brought about not only the mountain of purgatory but also the pit of hell itself. However, this reading is indefensible because it is supported by neither the bible nor medieval theology, because it is contradicted by the inscription over the Gate of Hell, because the formation of an eternal realm by any agency other than God himself was held to be impossible, and, most importantly, because careful analysis of the relevant passage in the poem itself clearly excludes the interpretation.