“Lo ‘mperador del doloroso regno Da mezzo ‘l petto uscia fuor de la ghiaccia” (Inferno, Canto XXXIV, 28)

This chapter presents the motive of ice in the Divine Comedy and analyzes its impact on the medieval iconography of hell represented as a part of the chosen Last Judgement scenes. In the first part of the article the author draws the image of ice present in the works of Dante Alighieri, concentrating particularly on its presence in the Divine Comedy. Then the article tries to refer to possible literary sources, especially selected fragments from the Bible and ancient writers, which could have influenced Dante’s perception of ice. The author also puts forward a hypothesis about the possible influence of the climatic conditions on the way the poet saw ice, cold and winter. In the last part of the article, the author focuses on selected representations of the Last Judgement scenes from the 14th–15th centuries, where the way ice hell was depicted might be, as it seems, directly influenced by Dante’s view on ice. At the end of the article, the author introduces the symbolic meaning of ice in eschatological context of the iconography of the Last Judgement.