Paradise has 33 cantos in chain-rhymed tercets, like the other two canticles, and is organized into ten heavens: the nine concentric heavens of ancient cosmology and the Empyrean. Dante climbs through them, from one heaven to the next, always guided by Beatrice, and in each he finds a group of souls.
In the Moon are those who fell short of a vow; in Mercury, those who acted for honor and fame; in Venus, those who loved; in the Sun, the wise; in Mars, those who fought for the faith; in Jupiter, the just; in Saturn, the contemplatives. In the Fixed Stars Dante sees the triumph of Christ and of Mary and is examined on the three virtues, and in the Primum Mobile, the last heaven that turns, he sees God as a point of light surrounded by nine circles of angels. The Empyrean is pure light, and in it opens the rose of the blessed.
The most common confusion that gets cleared up is that no one lives on the planets. The souls appear in each heaven so that Dante can understand the degrees, and all of them have their place in the rose, close to God. The degrees exist, but they do not measure happiness: Dante concludes, after hearing Piccarda, that everywhere in heaven is paradise, even though grace does not rain down in the same way everywhere. For reading, the canticle divides into eight parts of four or five cantos each, from I to XXXIII.