The setting is magnificent, the atmosphere cheerful: Renowned Dante scholars from all over the world gather in the venerable hall of the Knights of Malta on Rome's Aventine Hill, overlooking St. Peter's Basilica. The focus is on the Divine Comedy, Dante's realism-infused insight into the afterlife. One of the eager debaters is Gottlieb Elsheimer, a Romanist from Frankfurt, who considers himself more of a candidate for purgatory than for paradise. Despite his passion for the subject of research, he finds the increasingly exuberant behavior of his colleagues increasingly strange. As the church bells ring in Pentecost, an event of incomprehensible nature is about to unfold. Light-footed and eloquent, the Büchner Prize winner Sibylle Lewitscharoff walks with us through hell and heaven. The main characters in her new novel are the greatest comedy of world literature.