1. Vision of Alberic.⁠[466]—This legend is here included, not because the scenes depicted in it are in any way original, but because ever since the first publication of the Latin text in 1824 by the Abbé Cancellieri the Dantists have considered it to be one of the most important precursors of the Divine Comedy. Like the vision of St. Patrick, it dates from the thirteenth century, but was written in Italy, at the monastery of Montecasino. The monk, Alberic, is the protagonist and narrator of this journey to the realms of the after-life, which he is represented as having made in his childhood while unconscious during an illness.

The main episodes of the vision are those that have repeatedly been shown to be of Moslem origin. Thus, the lascivious are punished by being submerged in ice; apostates are shown devoured by serpents; murderers lie in the traditional lake of boiling blood; wicked mothers hang by their breasts from hooks, while adulteresses hang over fires. Then there is the scene of the monster whose breathing attracts and repels bodies, and that of Lucifer bound with heavy chains in a deep pit in the centre of hell. Finally, we have the most common scene of all, the narrow bridge that leads to heaven.

2. The Song of the Sun in the Edda.—Among the forerunners of the Divine Comedy, Ozanam includes the famous Solar Liod contained in the Edda Saemundar.⁠[467] Remote as the origin of these tales may be, the Solar Liod itself does not seem to be much older than the eleventh century. Ozanam himself observes that the poet depicts the realms of the after-life in a manner differing from the pagan traditions of his country. Moreover, the picture contains three distinctly Moslem features. In the first place, the lower world is divided into seven regions, as in the Islamic tales. Secondly, the souls in hell are represented as birds whose plumage is blackened by smoke. Now, just as in the discussion of the legend of St. Macarius it was shown to be a common feature of Moslem tales to depict the souls of the righteous as incarnate in birds of white or green plumage, so in a later chapter it will be shown that the incarnation of the souls of the wicked in birds of black plumage is an idea also prevalent in Islam. Lastly, the author of the Solar Liod depicts thieves as moving in groups in hell, laden with burdens of lead. Surely this scene also is derived from a Moslem hadith, which says: “On the day of judgment the rich man who failed to serve God shall be obliged to carry his riches on his back and at the passage of the bridge he shall stagger under his burden.”⁠[468]

3. Vision of Turcill.—This thirteenth-century vision contains, in addition to many Moslem features common to other legends, the scene in which a lawyer is forced to swallow his illicit gains.⁠[469] The ninth century legend of Wettin showed the powerful of this world similarly expiating their crimes of rapine.⁠[470] But this striking punishment was found in the Isra, where at one stage the faithless guardians and usurers are tortured by having stones of fire and darts of iron, symbolic of their ill-gotten gains, thrust down their throats, and in another scene lie helpless on the ground, their bellies swollen with the proceeds of their usury. The great age of the hadiths relating this torture is confirmed by Tabari in his ninth century commentary.⁠[471]

4. Vision of the Abbot Joachim.—This twelfth-century vision contains the scene, so common in Moslem hadiths, of the narrow and slippery bridge leading across a river of burning sulphur that runs through hell. The souls of the righteous cross this bridge with the swiftness of an eagle.⁠[472] The same simile occurs in a hadith which reads: “Some will cross the bridge with the speed of lightning, others like the wind, others again like birds.”⁠[473]

At the farther side of the bridge rises a wall, upon which the garden of paradise is built. This picture appears to be a copy of the Aaraf, which is represented in the Koran as a garden and a wall rising between hell and paradise.⁠[474]

5. Vision of the Bard of Regio Emilia.—This is an apocalyptic treatise composed in the thirteenth century in verse and in the vulgar dialect. Vossler states that it is difficult to understand how a nameless travelling minstrel could by his own unaided efforts have conceived so clear and comparatively logical a system of the after-world; and this very symmetry leads the critic to attach prime importance to this vision as being a prototype of Dante’s conception.⁠[475] The troubadour imagines hell as divided into eight regions, each of which has a name and distinctive features of its own.

The first, called Ago, is full of fire; the second, Tartaro, is the region of discord; the third, Averno, of cruelty; the fourth, Asiro, of evil memories; the fifth, Gena, is a region of sulphur; the sixth, Grabasso, is a place of trial; the seventh, Baratro, is characterised by depth; and the eighth, Abisso, is full of fiery furnaces and boiling pitch. The total circumference exceeds a thousand miles. Access is afforded by means of ten gates lying a hundred miles apart; each gate has its special features and is reserved for one particular class of sinners. Mountains, rivers and lakes of fire are seen at the entrance. The first gate is called the Gate of Tears, and the others are the Gates of Pain, Terror, Chains, Sulphur, Serpents, Thirst, and so forth.

6. The comparison made in a former chapter of the symmetric plan of Dante’s hell with its Moslem prototypes shows how little originality exists in the conception of the Italian troubadour.⁠[476] The two meanings of storey and gate, given in Moslem exegesis to the Koranic word bab, he placidly accepts and simply adapts his facts to the double interpretation by representing hell as having ten gates besides eight regions or storeys. The same solution finally predominated among the Sufis, for the Murcian Ibn Arabi imagined hell as having seven strata and seven gates. The dimensions of hell are stated with similar precision, though with greater hyperbole, in the hadiths, which fix the distance between the gates as equal to what a man might cover on foot in seventy years.⁠[477] Again, according to some hadiths, there are mountains and rivers of fire at the entrance to hell.⁠[478] Lastly, it has repeatedly been shown that each stage of the Moslem hell had a name and special features of its own and was reserved for one category of sinners. Indeed, to judge by the names, the bard of Regio Emilia may well be suspected of having availed himself of the hadith of Ibn Jurayj.⁠[479] For, having exhausted his stock of classical and Biblical names with Tartaro, Averno, Baratro and Abisso, he seems to have resorted to transcribing roughly the Arabic terms. Thus, while Ago appears to be derived from Haguia, Asiro is clearly copied from Asair, and Gena from Gehenam.⁠[480]