A guide to the Divine Comedy that provides readers with a map of the entire poem, from the lowest circle of Hell to the highest sphere of Paradise. It charts a simultaneously geographical and textual journey, canto by canto, region by region, adhering closely to the path taken by Dante himself through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
Like a saint's relics, Dante's bones have been stolen, exhumed, and worshiped. Guy Raffa narrates the Florentine poet's hereafter-the physical afterlife of the writer who vividly imagined the spiritual afterlife. In the story of the bones lies the tale of Dante's evolution from Renaissance to Italian to nationalist hero, and finally global icon.