Plot Synopsis

Conceived by Italian scholar Riccardo Bruscagli and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Ric Burns, DANTE: INFERNO TO PARADISE is a two-night, four-hour documentary that explores the life, work and legacy of the great 14th century Florentine poet Dante Alighieri, and the epic masterpiece he left behind: "The Divine Comedy." The two-parter highlights Dante's incomparable achievement and brings his story to life for a worldwide English-speaking audience. Exploring his 14,233-line poem -- in which crucial issues of politics, power, corruption, sin, violence, virtue, beauty, love, humility and compassion mingle and converge -- the film addresses universal human questions relevant to our own time: questions of morality and truth, life and death, the love of family and children, the love of country, the belief in something larger than oneself, and the love of God. The film undertakes a gripping odyssey into the depths of Dante's turbulent life, the faction-torn times he lived in, and the great poem he left behind. Along the way, it juxtaposes stunning live cinematography from across Italy; a dazzling array of paintings, drawings, manuscripts, maps, and frescos, many filmed on location and in the original in Florence, the Vatican and elsewhere; and riveting interviews with scholars, writers, poets, politicians, clergymen, and historians who have made the study of Dante the centerpiece of their life's work. Woven throughout, forming the film's narrative and emotional core, are dramatic re-enactments filmed for the production in locations across Italy from Florence to Carrara and Ravenna and beyond. The scenes are drawn from "The Divine Comedy" and the "Vita Nova," the masterwork of Dante's early career. DANTE: INFERNO TO PARADISE debuts from 8-10pm on PBS (check local listings) on consecutive nights, beginning Monday, March 18, 2024:

"Part 1: Inferno" (Monday, March 18, 2024): The first installment recounts the dramatic details of Dante's childhood, education and early literary and political career, culminating in his exile in 1302, and his decision to begin "The Divine Comedy" in 1306 -- and plunges thereafter, with Dante and his readers, into the underworld the poem itself where -- guided by the Roman poet, Virgil -- Dante will meet a vast cohort of historical and mythological figures -- culminating, at the very bottom of hell, in his encounter with Lucifer himself.

"Part 2: Resurrection" (Tuesday, March 19, 2024): The finale explores Dante's experience in exile, and his completion of the last two parts of "The Divine Comedy," shortly before his death in Ravenna in 1321. Interweaving scenes drawn from Dante's life in exile with passages drawn from Dante's journey up the mountain of Purgatory and thence up through the luminous celestial spheres of paradise, the film chronicles the final years of Dante's life, culminating with his death in exile, and goes on to explore the literary and cultural afterlife and impact of Dante's masterpiece from the time of his death down to the present.