ABSTRACT
This chapter details how the perception of a well-known legend changed across a number of times and places, from its origin as an element of early medieval Christian hagiography to its becoming, a millennium later, a heretical proposition for the early modern Catholic Church. The problem can likely be ascribed to the belief that, unlike Purgatory which from the end of the twelfth century is affirmed as a place of temporary suffering both Hell and Paradise are understood to be inhabited eternally. In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, a marble bas-relief on Purgatory's first terrace depicts Trajan granting justice to a widow; but the Emperor's soul is in Paradise granted entry, it should be noted, after returning to life for a short time.
