Inferno (Italian for 'Hell') is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem 'Divine Comedy'. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante's journey through 'Hell', guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil.

In the poem, 'Hell' is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".

The nine circles of torment or Hell are 'Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery'.

Virgil proceeds to guide Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating at the center of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. The sinners of each circle are punished for eternity in a fashion fitting their crimes. Each punishment is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice.

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