Oh, it starts way before Dante. Hell is actually a sort of mismatch of different beliefs. Babylonian, Norse, Buddhist and Greco-Roman belief systems all had an underground afterlife with variable ideas of punishment for the wicked. The Bible just mentions “Gehenna” which was actually a real place on earth where trash was burned. Basically think of someone talking about the local dump. Thing about trash though is it doesn’t really burn eternally, it just burns away and it was likely being used as a metaphor. The usage of it also doesn’t really mention an eternity, links it with the devil or any of that. People really like rhe idea of someone getting their jist desserts after death so a idea of “bad people just stop existing” was probably kind of doomed to not be super popular. Basically that just leaves a door open for folk belief to stuff somebody else in the Hades/Hel/Ereshkigal role and carry on having a hell just like they did before.

All told Christianity and it’s family of belief systems is actually a fairly late adopter of the belief in something like a hell. It’s closest thematic relative is probably Buddhist Naraka which was first written about around the 400 BC but there’s not a lot of scriptural evidence that anything like that was intended for Christians. At best Judaism has an idea of an afterlife where one is consumed by shame but it sounds more like what happens when a kid is told their parent is disappointed in them and to go to their room.