ABSTRACT
This chapter explains array of scholars who examine hell as an idea within the Christian tradition and its 'afterlife' in historical and contemporary imagination. In hell the damned souls from Florence and its neighboring city states are often clustered together so that they form small groups, and Dante's mingling with them becomes a parodic form of this same municipal socializing. Virgil's underworld is divided into different regions and the part that most resembles Dante's infernal city is Tartarus, a large fortress where the most evil souls are imprisoned and punished. This urban subjectivity arises primarily through a process of recollection which continues to shape their identities as damned souls: the souls who speak to Dante and Virgil frequently identify themselves and others by the city of their origin, and the result of this is no matter what their physical surroundings or physical condition they still behave as residents of a city.
