Erichtho is also mentioned by name in the first book of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy", "Inferno": in Canto IX, Dante and Virgil are initially denied access to the gates of Dis, and so Dante, doubting his guide and hoping for confirmation, asks Virgil if he has ever travelled to the depths of Hell before. Virgil responds in the affirmative, explaining that at one point he had journeyed to the lowest circle of Hell on behest of Erichtho in order to retrieve a soul for one of her necromantic rites. Simon A. Gilson notes that such a story is "without precedent in medieval sources, and highly problematic".