Inferno opens with an epigraph attributed to Dante Alighieri: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis” (1). The prologue, written in the first person, is told from the point of view of “The Shade,” who is being chased by an unidentified pursuer through the streets of an Italian city. The Shade recalls the city’s landmarks with ease, and a knowledgeable reader might recognize them as belonging to Florence, Italy, but the Shade does not name the city outright. The Shade makes vague, cryptic references to a “gift” that it has given to its pursuers and the rest of humanity, which waits in a “lagoon that reflects no stars,” but the Shade also notes the pursuers do not understand the nature of the gift and are ungrateful (7). At last, the Shade is chased to the top of a tower and leaps to their death after stating, “My gift is Inferno” (7).

The narration switches to the third person for the rest of the novel and begins from the perspective of Professor Robert Langdon amid a hallucinatory vision.