Three main realms make up Dante Alighieri’s journey in the “Divine Comedy”: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
The poem follows Dante through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Virgil guides him through Inferno and most of Purgatorio, while Beatrice guides him through Paradiso. The journey is both an imagined voyage through the afterlife and an allegorical movement from sin and confusion toward purification and divine vision.
Each realm is organized in a highly structured way. Inferno contains nine circles, Purgatory rises through seven terraces, and Paradise is arranged through nine celestial spheres before the Empyrean. These internal divisions should not be mistaken for additional main realms.
Dante wrote the poem in Italian, probably between about 1308 and 1321. He called it a “Comedy” in the medieval sense of a work that begins in difficulty and ends happily; the adjective “Divine” was added later through the poem’s critical and publishing history.