Introduction It is a rare experience to open a book written over seven centuries ago and to feel its grip tighten over one’s imagination, conscience, and vision of the world. Reading Dante’s Inferno for the first time, I recall an uncanny sense of being personally summoned—called, as Dante was, to traverse the winding paths of moral insight and existential reckoning. The Inferno is not just a catalogue of punishments; it is a living, breathing confrontation between the self, the history that shaped...