Dante's Inferno Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. Unlike the fiery punishments often associated with Hell, the deepest circle is dominated by what physical environment?
A desert of burning sand
A frozen lake
A swamp of boiling pitch
A forest filled with harpies
2. Dante encounters people running endlessly after a blank banner before crossing Acheron. Who are they?
The unbaptized virtuous souls of Limbo
The wrathful souls punished in the Styx
The morally neutral souls who committed to neither good nor evil
The fraudulent counselors of Malebolge
3. A newly arrived soul stands before Minos for judgment. How does Minos indicate the soul’s assigned circle?
He points toward one of several gates
He wraps his tail around himself a corresponding number of times
He names the ruling demon of the circle
He weighs the soul’s deeds on a balance
4. When Dante breaks a branch from a thorn tree, the damaged tree bleeds and speaks. Which soul is associated with this scene?
Pier delle Vigne
Farinata degli Uberti
Count Ugolino
Master Adam
5. Which three traitors are chewed in the mouths of Satan?
Judas Iscariot, Caiaphas, and Ulysses
Brutus, Cassius, and Count Ugolino
Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius
Judas Iscariot, Ganelon, and Bocca degli Abati
6. Which figure serves as Dante’s principal guide through Hell?
Statius
Virgil
Brunetto Latini
Cato of Utica
7. A pair of lovers tells Dante their story while being swept helplessly through a violent wind. Which sin does this punishment represent?
Treachery
Avarice
Wrath
Lust
8. What does the name Malebolge refer to in the structure of Dante’s Hell?
The walls surrounding the City of Dis
The frozen regions within Cocytus
The ten “evil ditches” of the eighth circle
The ledges occupied by the violent
9. At the beginning of Inferno, where does Dante realize he has lost the right path?
On the banks of the Acheron
At the foot of Mount Purgatory
Inside the City of Dis
In a dark wood
10. Which warning appears above the gate of Hell?
Abandon every hope, you who enter
Only the virtuous may enter here
Justice yields to those who repent
Speak no name among the dead
11. Near the end of Inferno, Dante sees Virgil appear to reverse direction while climbing on Satan. What has actually happened?
They have passed Earth’s center of gravity and are now moving toward the other hemisphere
The travelers have been turned around by a demonic illusion
They have begun climbing back toward the City of Dis
Virgil has become disoriented by Satan’s wings
12. Which punishment best illustrates the contrapasso assigned to flatterers in Malebolge?
They carry heavy cloaks covered in gilded lead
They are concealed inside individual flames
They walk backward with their heads twisted around
They are immersed in excrement
13. What structural change does the travelers’ entrance into the City of Dis mark?
Their passage from the upper circles into lower Hell
Their departure from Hell for Mount Purgatory
Their movement from fraud to the realm of treachery
Their first entrance into the vestibule of Hell
14. Dante meets Farinata degli Uberti standing defiantly in a burning tomb. In which circle is this encounter located?
The fourth circle, among the avaricious and prodigal
The fifth circle, among the wrathful and sullen
The eighth circle, among the fraudulent
The sixth circle, among the heretics
15. Ulysses recounts a final voyage driven by his desire for experience and knowledge. How is he punished among the fraudulent counselors?
He is frozen beneath the surface of Cocytus
He is enclosed within a speaking flame
He is bitten by serpents and repeatedly transformed
He is forced to carry a lead-lined cloak
16. Dante and Virgil need to descend from the eighth circle toward the ninth. Which figure physically lowers them into Cocytus?
The boatman Phlegyas
The centaur Chiron
The giant Antaeus
The demon Malacoda