Purgatory, the second canticle of Dante Alighieri's Comedy, tells how Dante and Virgil leave Inferno, climb a mountain of seven ledges, where souls purge misdirected love, and reach the Earthly Paradise, where Virgil disappears and Beatrice accuses Dante and washes him in the rivers Lethe and Eunoe.
In cantos I to VIII, Dante reaches the shore of an island at dawn on Holy Week of 1300, and finds an old guardian whom tradition identifies with Cato. At the foot of the mountain, in Ante-Purgatory, wait those who repented late: Manfred, Belacqua, those who died by force, such as Buonconte, the poet Sordello and the princes of the valley. In cantos IX to XXI, after a gate where an angel carves seven P's on Dante's brow, he climbs the ledges of pride, envy, wrath, sloth and avarice, and at the center of the poem he hears from Virgil the lesson that every act is born of love.
In cantos XXII to XXVII, he passes through gluttony and lust, learns from Statius how the soul is formed and enters the wall of fire by the name of Beatrice. In cantos XXVIII to XXXIII, in the Earthly Paradise, Matelda explains the place, a procession passes and Beatrice arrives, calls Dante by name, hears his confession and orders him to write what he sees. The canticle ends with Dante renewed, pure and disposed to rise to the stars.