Circles of hell

first part of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy"

thumb|Sinners in the second bolgia, as illustrated by Stradanus. In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, part of the Divine Comedy, Malebolge ( ; ; ), or Fraud, is the eighth circle of Hell. It is a large, funnel-shaped cavern, itself divided into ten concentric circular trenches or ditches, each called a or 'ditch'). Long causeway bridges run from the outer circumference of Malebolge to its center, pictured as spokes on a wheel. At the center of Malebolge is the ninth and final circle of hell, known as Cocytus.