The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. The poem traces the narrator's journey through the afterlife -- visiting first hell, then purgatory, and then paradise -- and presents an imaginative vision of the afterlife that provides great insight into the medieval Catholic worldview.

In this Seymour Chwast's version of Dante Alighieri's epic poem, Dante and his guide Virgil don fedoras and wander through noirish realms of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Along the way they catalog a multitude of sinners and saints--many of them real people to whom Dante tellingly assigned either horrible punishment or indescribable pleasure--and meet both God and Lucifer face-to-face. Chwast creates a visual fantasia that fascinates on every page....