DANTE’S VISION OF HELL, THE INFERNO

1. Dante’s Inferno (Italian for “Hell”), the first part of the 14th century epic poem Divine Comedy. An allegory telling of the journey of Dante through the medieval concept of Hell. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Usury is contrary to nature because "it is in accordance with nature that money should increase from natural goods and not from money itself.“ (Money can’t naturally produce itself.)

2. Dante puts the usurers in the lowest sub-circle of the seventh circle of hell, with others whose sins are regarded as doing violence against nature and nature's God; • Usurers are placed deeper into hell than violent murderers, violent suicides, blasphemers, and sodomites. • Dante regards usurers as perverting art (or a productive skill). We are supposed to produce and create and thereby imitate the goodness of God. Usurers don’t do this. • Usury is the anti-art: it produces nothing substantial, being just a set of multiplication games with money, and therefore does not really contribute anything to 'earning one's way and furthering humankind'. • The Violent in Dante's hell suffer violent punishments • The usurer’s punishment is to sit while futilely and wearily trying to ward off with their hands the violent, whipping winds that sometimes shower them with burning sand and sometimes cover them with flaming fire. DANTE’S VISION OF HELL, THE INFERNO