SOURCE: “Dante's Notion of a Shade: Purgatorio XXV,” Mediaeval Studies, Vol. 29, 1967, pp. 124-42.

In the following essay, Gilson explores the nature and origin of the shades—the characters in Hell, Purgatory, and the lower circles of Paradise—and the motivation behind Dante's efforts to scientifically justify them.

The art of Dante is so imperious and compelling that, as with Michael Angelo's and Beethoven's, when its spell has taken hold of us, the artist can make us believe what he pleases. I know from personal experience that one can read the Divine Comedy for many years without wondering about the nature and origin of the beings called by Dante ombre and by us shades. Yet the Sacred Poem is full of such beings. Shades make up the bulk of the population in hell and purgatory and we take them for granted; but as soon as we begin to ask...