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60 free Divine Comedy trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Divine Comedy trivia for readers who made it past the gate of Hell and readers who only remember 'abandon all hope'. The quiz opens with the poem itself: when Dante wrote it, why he called it a comedy, who added 'Divine', the Tuscan vernacular, terza rima, the 100 cantos, the three guides and the year 1300. Then it descends: the three beasts, contrapasso, Charon, the pope of the great refusal, Limbo's poets, Minos's tail, Paolo and Francesca, Cerberus and the mud, Geryon, Malebolge, Nicholas III upside down, Ulysses's last voyage, the wood of suicides, Brunetto Latini, Antaeus, Ugolino gnawing Ruggieri, and the frozen lake of Cocytus. Purgatorio and Paradiso get their share: the island mountain in the southern hemisphere, Cato at the shore, Easter morning, the seven Ps carved on Dante's forehead, Sordello, Statius, Pia de' Tolomei, the dolce stil novo, then the nine spheres, Justinian, Cacciaguida's prophecy, the eagle of just rulers, Trajan and Ripheus, the apostles' examination, Gemini and the heavenly rose. It ends with the world outside the poem: the White Guelphs and exile, Ravenna and malaria, the Foligno printing of 1472, Longfellow, Asín Palacios and Dante's real name. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Divine Comedy, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso and Dante Alighieri, with the supporting sentence attached to each question. Easy questions suit anyone who has heard of Dante; the expert tier reaches Judecca, Bonagiunta and the Kitab al Miraj.
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Q 01The Divine Comedy is divided into three parts. Which is the middle one?
Purgatorio
Allegorically the three parts trace the soul's rejection of sin, the penitent Christian life and the ascent to God.
Q 02Roughly when was the Divine Comedy written?
Begun c. 1308, finished c. 1321
Dante finished it shortly before his death in September 1321.
Q 03In which language, rather than Latin, did Dante write the Divine Comedy?
Tuscan
The poem helped establish that dialect as standard Italian; Dante is called the father of the Italian language.
Q 04Who first attached the adjective 'Divine' to Dante's Comedy, in a treatise written in the 1350s?
Giovanni Boccaccio
Dante simply called it Comedìa; the first printed edition to put 'Divina Comedia' on the title page was Dolce's of 1555.
Q 05How many lines does the Divine Comedy contain?
14,233
They are split into three cantiche of 33 cantos each, plus an introductory canto, for 100 in total.
Q 06What is the name of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme (ABA BCB CDC) Dante used?
Terza rima
Each line has eleven syllables, so a tercet has 33 syllables, matching the 33 cantos per cantica.
Q 07What does Virgil represent allegorically as Dante's guide through Hell and most of Purgatory?
Human reason
Beatrice stands for divine revelation, theology and grace; his Aeneid is praised in language Dante otherwise reserves for Scripture.
Q 08Which Cistercian abbot guides Dante through the final three cantos of Paradiso?
Bernard of Clairvaux
He represents contemplative mysticism and devotion to Mary, and prays to the Virgin on Dante's behalf.
Q 09In which year is the journey of the Divine Comedy set?
1300
It runs from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter, when Dante was 35, 'halfway along our life's path'.
Q 10What is the last word of each of the three cantiche?
Stelle (stars)
Dante and Virgil climb out of Hell 'to see the stars again' at the end of Inferno.
Q 11Which three beasts block Dante's path in the dark wood at the start of the poem?
A leopard, a lion and a she-wolf
They are read as three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent and the malicious, which also structure Hell.
Q 12What is the term for the symbolic poetic justice by which each sin in the Inferno is punished?
Contrapasso
Fortune-tellers, for instance, walk with their heads twisted backwards because they tried to see ahead in life.
Q 13Which phrase ends the inscription on the gate of Hell in Canto III?
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here
Q 21What is the name of the Eighth Circle, a funnel of ten concentric ditches for the fraudulent?
Malebolge
The name means 'evil ditches'; each ditch, or bolgia, holds a different kind of fraud, from seducers to falsifiers.
Q 22Which pope, planted head-first among the simoniacs, mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII arriving early?
Nicholas III
Boniface will take his place in the stone tube in 1303, and be replaced in turn by Clement V, who moved the papacy to Avignon.
Q 23Which hero, sharing a flame with Diomedes, tells Dante of a final voyage past the Pillars of Hercules?
Ulysses
His crew drown within sight of Mount Purgatory, an emblem of rhetoric without wisdom.
The Italian is 'Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate'.
Q 14Which ferryman carries souls across the Acheron and initially refuses Dante because he is alive?
Charon
Virgil silences him with 'It is so willed there where is power to do that which is willed'; Dante faints and wakes on the far side.
Q 15Which pope is implied to be the soul who made "the great refusal", seen among the neutrals in Hell's vestibule?
Celestine V
His abdication was seen as opening the door to Boniface VIII, whom Dante loathed.
Q 16In Limbo, which four poets welcome Dante as 'sixth in that high company' alongside Virgil?
Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan
Dante had no access to Homer's actual works; his classical models were Virgil, Ovid and Lucan.
Q 17How does the judge Minos assign each soul to its circle of Hell?
By wrapping his tail around himself that many times
He combines the classical judge Minos with Rhadamanthus, interrogator of the underworld.
Q 18Which pair of lovers, killed by her husband, does Dante meet among the lustful in Canto V?
Paolo and Francesca
They fell in love reading of Lancelot and Guinevere; Francesca calls the book their 'Galeotto', their go-between.
Q 19Which three-headed beast guards the gluttons in the third circle, and how does Virgil get past it?
Cerberus; he fills its mouths with mud
The gluttons wallow in putrid slush under ceaseless icy rain; the Florentine Ciacco, 'hog', predicts Dante's exile here.
Q 20Which winged monster of fraud carries Dante and Virgil down the great cliff into the Eighth Circle?
Geryon
Dante gives him a scorpion's tail, hairy arms, a gaudy reptile body and 'the face of a just and honest man'.
Q 24Which count is found gnawing the skull of Archbishop Ruggieri, who starved him in a tower?
Ugolino
His story in Canto XXXIII has been called the most pathetic and dramatic passage of the Inferno.
Q 25What is the Ninth Circle of Hell, home of the traitors?
A frozen lake called Cocytus
Its four rounds are named for Cain, Antenor, Ptolemy and Judas.
Q 26Which unchained giant lowers Dante and Virgil in his palm to the bottom of Hell?
Antaeus
Nimrod, builder of Babel, babbles nonsense nearby, and Ephialtes has his arms chained.
Q 27Which fourth round of Cocytus, with sinners fully encased in ice, is named for Judas Iscariot?
Judecca
It holds traitors to their lords and benefactors.
Q 28Which river of boiling blood punishes murderers and tyrants in the Seventh Circle, patrolled by centaurs?
Phlegethon
The centaur Nessus points out Alexander the Great and Ezzelino da Romano before ferrying the poets across.
Q 29Which beloved teacher of Dante's does he meet, to his surprise, among the sodomites on the burning sand?
Brunetto Latini
Dante tells him 'you taught me how man makes himself eternal', the highest tribute paid to any sinner in Hell.
Q 30Into what are the souls of suicides transformed in the second ring of the Seventh Circle?
Gnarled, thorny trees
Harpies feed on them, and they can speak only when broken and bleeding; they alone will not regain their bodies at the Last Judgement.