Dan Brown - Inferno

After listing the vast array of famous composers, artists, and authors who had created works based on Dante’s epic poem, Langdon scanned the crowd. “So tell me, do we have any authors here tonight?”

Nearly one-third of the hands went up. Langdon stared out in shock. Wow, either this is the most accomplished audience on earth, or this e-publishing thing is really taking off.

“Well, as all of you authors know, there is nothing a writer appreciates more than a blurb — one of those single-line endorsements from a powerful individual, designed to make others want to buy your work. And, in the Middle Ages, blurbs existed, too. And Dante got quite a few of them.”

Langdon changed slides. “How would you like to have this on your book jacket?”

Ne’er walked the earth a greater man than he.

— Michelangelo

A murmur of surprise rustled through the crowd.

“Yes,” Langdon said, “that’s the same Michelangelo you all know from the Sistine Chapel and the David . In addition to being a master painter and sculptor, Michelangelo was a superb poet, publishing nearly three hundred poems — including one titled ‘Dante,’ dedicated to the man whose stark visions of hell were those that inspired Michelangelo’s Last Judgment . And if you don’t believe me, read the third canto of Dante’s Inferno and then visit the Sistine Chapel; just above the altar, you’ll see this familiar image.”

Langdon advanced slides to a frightening detail of a muscle-bound beast swinging a giant paddle at cowering people. “This is Dante’s hellish ferryman, Charon, beating straggling passengers with an oar.”

Langdon moved now to a new slide — a second detail of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment —a man being crucified. “This is Haman the Agagite, who, according to Scripture, was hanged to death. However, in Dante’s poem, he was crucified instead. As you can see here in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo chose Dante’s version over that of the Bible.” Langdon grinned and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell the pope.”

The crowd laughed.

“Dante’s Inferno created a world of pain and suffering beyond all previous human imagination, and his writing quite literally defined our modern visions of hell.” Langdon paused. “And believe me, the Catholic Church has much to thank Dante for. His Inferno terrified the faithful for centuries, and no doubt tripled church attendance among the fearful.”

Langdon switched the slide. “And this leads us to the reason we are all here tonight.”

The screen now displayed the title of his lecture: DIVINE DANTE: SYMBOLS OF HELL.

“Dante’s Inferno is a landscape so rich in symbolism and iconography that I often dedicate an entire semester course to it. And tonight, I thought there would be no better way to unveil the symbols of Dante’s Inferno than to walk side by side with him … through the gates of hell.”

Langdon paced out to the edge of the stage and surveyed the crowd. “Now, if we’re planning on taking a stroll through hell, I strongly recommend we use a map. And there is no map of Dante’s hell more complete and accurate than the one painted by Sandro Botticelli.”

He touched his remote, and Botticelli’s forbidding Mappa dell’Inferno materialized before the crowd. He could hear several groans as people absorbed the various horrors taking place in the funnel-shaped subterranean cavern.

“Unlike some artists, Botticelli was extremely faithful in his interpretation of Dante’s text. In fact, he spent so much time reading Dante that the great art historian Giorgio Vasari said Botticelli’s obsession with Dante led to ‘serious disorders in his living.’ Botticelli created more than two dozen other works relating to Dante, but this map is his most famous.”

Langdon turned now, pointing to the upper left-hand corner of the painting. “Our journey will begin up there, aboveground, where you can see Dante in red, along with his guide, Virgil, standing outside the gates of hell. From there we will travel downward, through the nine rings of Dante’s inferno, and eventually come face-to-face with …”

Langdon quickly flashed to a new slide — a giant enlargement of Satan as depicted by Botticelli in this very painting — a horrific, three-headed Lucifer consuming three different people, one in each mouth.

The crowd gasped audibly.

“A glance at coming attractions,” Langdon announced. “This frightening character here is where tonight’s journey will end. This is the ninth ring of hell, where Satan himself resides. However …” Langdon paused. “Getting there is half the fun, so let’s rewind a bit … back up to the gates of hell, where our journey begins.”

Langdon moved to the next slide — a Gustave Doré lithograph that depicted a dark, tunneled entrance carved into the face of an austere cliff. The inscription above the door read: ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

“So …” Langdon said with a smile. “Shall we enter?”

Somewhere tires screeched loudly, and the audience evaporated before Langdon’s eyes. He felt himself lurch forward, and he collided with Sienna’s back as the Trike skidded to a stop in the middle of the Viale Machiavelli.

Langdon reeled, still thinking about the gates of hell looming before him. As he regained his bearings, he saw where he was.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

Sienna pointed three hundred yards ahead to the Porta Romana — the ancient stone gateway that served as the entrance to old Florence. “Robert, we’ve got a problem.”

Agent Brüder stood in the humble apartment and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Who the hell lives here? The decor was sparse and jumbled, like a college dorm room furnished on a budget.

“Agent Brüder?” one of his men called from down the hall. “You’ll want to see this.”

As Brüder made his way down the hall, he wondered if the local police had detained Langdon yet. Brüder would have preferred to solve this crisis “in-house,” but Langdon’s escape had left little choice but to enlist local police support and set up roadblocks. An agile motorbike on the labyrinthine streets of Florence would easily elude Brüder’s vans, whose heavy polycarbonate windows and solid, puncture-proof tires made them impenetrable but lumbering. The Italian police had a reputation for being uncooperative with outsiders, but Brüder’s organization had significant influence — police, consulates, embassies. When we make demands, nobody dares question.

Brüder entered the small office where his man stood over an open laptop and typed in latex gloves. “This is the machine he used,” the man said. “Langdon used it to access his e-mail and run some searches. The files are still cached.”

Brüder moved toward the desk.

“It doesn’t appear to be Langdon’s computer,” the tech said. “It’s registered to someone initialed S.C. — I should have a full name shortly.”

As Brüder waited, his eyes were drawn to a stack of papers on the desk. He picked them up, thumbing through the unusual array — an old playbill from the London Globe Theatre and a series of newspaper articles. The more Brüder read, the wider his eyes became.

Taking the documents, Brüder slipped back into the hall and placed a call to his boss. “It’s Brüder,” he said. “I think I’ve got an ID on the person helping Langdon.”

“Who is it?” his boss replied.

Brüder exhaled slowly. “You’re not going to believe this.”

Two miles away, Vayentha hunkered low on her BMW as it fled the area. Police cars raced past her in the opposite direction, sirens blaring.