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you were not made to live your lives as brutes, but to be followers of worth and knowledge
Inferno XXVI, 119-120
The voyage from Hell to the Empyrean is an expiatory journey that Dante undertakes in his lifetime in the afterworld. In so doing, he presents a new image of the world, in which the spiritual and physical dimensions merge into a single, credible cosmographic reality. In a masterful combination of science and poetry, Dante conceived the Divina Commedia as the cosmographic account of human history, of knowledge pursued by man in accordance with divine will, and of the relationship between man and God—which was essential for a medieval Christian. While consistent with the cosmographic tradition of his time, Dante’s world transcends reality and connects terrestrial life to eternal life. For this, it models itself on the certainties of the supreme science, Theology, the “Divine Science” that “because of the supreme certainty of its subject, which is God,” is absolute and unchallengeable (Convivio II xiv 19-21).
Chronology of Dante’s journey
