Physics from Hell — How Galileo invented modern physics by thinking about Dante’s Inferno.
A Found poem from Dante’s Inferno, made for a friend.
Dante and Virgil in Hell (1850)
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
A scene from Dante’s Inferno: In the Fifth Circle of Hell, on the banks of the River Styx, those damned for the sin of wrath fight each other through eternity, while the sullen and slothful languish helplessly. Dante and his guide through Hell, the ghost of the poet Virgil, observe from the left, while a demonic angel watches over all.
“S’i’ credesse che mia riposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria sanza più scosse;
ma però che già mai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s’i’ odo il vero,
sanza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.”
In the midway of this, our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.
Canto 1, ll 1.2
