DANTE'S INFERNO STUDY GUIDE 2026/2027
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Guido da Montefeltro - ✔✔Military; war most of life; obtained victory by deceit;
served as Pope's military counselor; Saint Francis and devil battle for Guido's fate
✔✔"If you have fallen into this blind world
but recently, out of the sweet Italian
country from which I carry all my guilt,
do tell me if the Romagnoles have peace
or war; I was from there—the hills between
Urbino and the ridge where Tiber springs." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔Pope Celestine V - ✔✔Holy; horrified by corruption; quits Pope
✔✔Canto XXVIII - ✔✔The Eighth Circle, Ninth Pouch, where the Sowers of Scandal
and Schism, perpetually circling, are wounded and - after each healing - wounded again
by a demon with a sword. Mohammed and Ali. Warning to Fra Dolcino. Curio. Mosca.
Bertran de Born.
✔✔I still was bent, attentive, over him,
when my guide nudged me lightly at the side
and said: "You speak; he is Italian." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔"If I thought my reply were meant for one
who ever could return into the world,
this flame would stir no more; and yet, since none—
if what I hear is true—ever returned
alive from this abyss, then without fear
of facing infamy, I answer you." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔"I was a man of arms, then wore the cord,
believing that, so girt, I made amends;
and surely what I thought would have been true
had not the Highest Priest—may he be damned!—
made me fall back into my former sins;
and how and why, I'd have you hear from me." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔While I still had the form of bones and flesh
my mother gave to me, my deeds were not
, those of the lion but those of the fox.
The wiles and secret ways—I knew them all
and so employed their arts that my renown
had reached the very boundaries of earth. - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔And then he said: 'Your heart must not mistrust:
I now absolve you in advance—teach me
to batter Penestrino to the ground.
You surely know that I possess the power
to lock and unlock Heaven; for the keys
my predecessor did not prize are two.' - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔Then his grave arguments compelled me so,
my silence seemed a worse offense than speech,
and I said: 'Since you cleanse me of the sin
that I must now fall into, Father, know:
long promises and very brief fulfillments
will bring a victory to your high throne.' - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔Who, even with untrammeled words and many
attempts at telling, ever could recount
in full the blood and wounds that I now saw?
Each tongue that tried would certainly fall short
because the shallowness of both our speech
and intellect cannot contain so much. - ✔✔Inferno 28
(Eighth Circle, Ninth Pouch)
✔✔I surely saw, and it still seems I see,
a trunk without a head that walked just like
the others in that melancholy herd;
it carried by the hair its severed head,
which swayed within its hand just like a lantern;
and that head looked at us and said: "Ah me!"
Out of itself it made itself a lamp,
and they were two in one and one in two;
how that can be, He knows who so decrees. - ✔✔Inferno 28
(Eighth Circle, Ninth Pouch)
✔✔"Now you can see atrocious punishment,
you who, still breathing, go to view the dead:
see if there's any pain as great as this.
And so that you may carry news of me,
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Guido da Montefeltro - ✔✔Military; war most of life; obtained victory by deceit;
served as Pope's military counselor; Saint Francis and devil battle for Guido's fate
✔✔"If you have fallen into this blind world
but recently, out of the sweet Italian
country from which I carry all my guilt,
do tell me if the Romagnoles have peace
or war; I was from there—the hills between
Urbino and the ridge where Tiber springs." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔Pope Celestine V - ✔✔Holy; horrified by corruption; quits Pope
✔✔Canto XXVIII - ✔✔The Eighth Circle, Ninth Pouch, where the Sowers of Scandal
and Schism, perpetually circling, are wounded and - after each healing - wounded again
by a demon with a sword. Mohammed and Ali. Warning to Fra Dolcino. Curio. Mosca.
Bertran de Born.
✔✔I still was bent, attentive, over him,
when my guide nudged me lightly at the side
and said: "You speak; he is Italian." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔"If I thought my reply were meant for one
who ever could return into the world,
this flame would stir no more; and yet, since none—
if what I hear is true—ever returned
alive from this abyss, then without fear
of facing infamy, I answer you." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔"I was a man of arms, then wore the cord,
believing that, so girt, I made amends;
and surely what I thought would have been true
had not the Highest Priest—may he be damned!—
made me fall back into my former sins;
and how and why, I'd have you hear from me." - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔While I still had the form of bones and flesh
my mother gave to me, my deeds were not
, those of the lion but those of the fox.
The wiles and secret ways—I knew them all
and so employed their arts that my renown
had reached the very boundaries of earth. - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔And then he said: 'Your heart must not mistrust:
I now absolve you in advance—teach me
to batter Penestrino to the ground.
You surely know that I possess the power
to lock and unlock Heaven; for the keys
my predecessor did not prize are two.' - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔Then his grave arguments compelled me so,
my silence seemed a worse offense than speech,
and I said: 'Since you cleanse me of the sin
that I must now fall into, Father, know:
long promises and very brief fulfillments
will bring a victory to your high throne.' - ✔✔Inferno 27
(Eighth Circle, Eighth Pouch)
✔✔Who, even with untrammeled words and many
attempts at telling, ever could recount
in full the blood and wounds that I now saw?
Each tongue that tried would certainly fall short
because the shallowness of both our speech
and intellect cannot contain so much. - ✔✔Inferno 28
(Eighth Circle, Ninth Pouch)
✔✔I surely saw, and it still seems I see,
a trunk without a head that walked just like
the others in that melancholy herd;
it carried by the hair its severed head,
which swayed within its hand just like a lantern;
and that head looked at us and said: "Ah me!"
Out of itself it made itself a lamp,
and they were two in one and one in two;
how that can be, He knows who so decrees. - ✔✔Inferno 28
(Eighth Circle, Ninth Pouch)
✔✔"Now you can see atrocious punishment,
you who, still breathing, go to view the dead:
see if there's any pain as great as this.
And so that you may carry news of me,
