Transcript Slide 1

The Inferno:
From This Blind World
Into the Living Light
(Circle Eight: Fraud)
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction + SDAIE
19 November 2014
Venedico Caccianemico
(Panderer)
Sold his sister, Ghisola (often called
“Ghisolabella” for her beauty) to the
Marquis Obbizo da Este in order to win
influence with him.
He was a well-known Guelf politician
in Bologna, a city whose populace was
notorious for pandering.
He, like the Unknown Florentine
Suicide in Circle Seven (and like one of
the Grafters in Bolgia Five), stands in for
his city here; his suffering is Dante’s way
of metaphorically punishing the town.
Jason (Seducer)
Jason was an ancient hero who plays a role
in Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
As leader of the Argonauts, Jason retrieved
the Golden Fleece thanks in part to Medea, a
princess of Colchis who used her magic to help
Jason defeat the dragon guarding the Fleece.
Jason took her along with him after leaving
Colchis, married her, and sired two of her
children, only to abandon her in order to marry
a woman named Cruesa.
In response, Medea killed her own children
and poisoned Cruesa.
Jason had also seduced and abandoned a
woman named Hypsipyle midway through his
quest for the Fleece, so the sexual and
emotional infidelity he displays towards
Medea aren’t exactly new.
Alessio Interminelli
(Flatterer)
A sinner who, like Venedico (but unlike Jason),
wants to hide his identity and terrible suffering from
Dante; it’s him who reveals this new trend among the
sinners.
Dante’s original Italian descriptions of him
onomatopoeically hiss and ooze – thus making him so
inseparable from his disgusting punishment (the
double “Cs” in particular recall the sound of Alessio
slapping his waste-covered head in torment) that we
recoil from any discussion of him, remembering him
only as a repulsive, wretched figure.
If we recoil from their sight, it’s probably a good
thing – provided we recognize the sin before
renouncing it.
Much of the renunciation actually takes place
during the last two parts of The Divine Comedy; The
Inferno is much more interested in really recognizing
each sin for what it is, as well as understanding why
those who seek salvation have to purge themselves of
their desire to commit sin.
Pope Nicholas III (Simoniac)
Nicholas is the simonist pope who once
served as the head of the Inquisition; he
assumed the papacy in 1277.
He’s a fascinating figure because of his
contradictory nature.
As a pope, he actually did many good
things – he cared for the poor and brokered
compromises between different religious
factions; however, his high moral standards
were offset by his eagerly nepotistic practice
of handing church positions to undeserving
family members in order to benefit himself.
Interestingly, Nicholas mistakes Dante for
Boniface at first, eventually revealing that
the latter is far more corrupt than he – and
that he will displace Nicholas from his tube.
Tiresias (Diviner)
Perhaps the most famous fortune-teller in
all of classical mythology, Tiresias gained his
powers when he stumbled upon two
entangled snakes and struck at them with
his staff.
Upon striking them, he was changed into
a woman – then was changed back seven
years later when he found the same snakes
and struck them again.
After taking the wrong side in Zeus and
Hera’s argument, he was struck blind by
Hera; Zeus, feeling somewhat guilty for
involving Tiresias in the first place, gave him
the ability to see the future instead.
He pops up in a lot of different places –
everything from The Odyssey to The Waste
Land – so he’s a good one to know.
Unidentified Navarrese
(Ciampolo) (Grafter)
Little is known about him save what
Dante writes, although he’s French
rather than Florentine; although Ciardi
never identifies him, many scholars
accept that he is Ciampolo, who took
bribes in exchange for favors through
his service for his king.
His total lack of moral fiber also
distinguishes him: he offers to betray
his peers in order to save himself, then
turns on those who accept what is, in
essence, another bribe.
It’s only fitting that he, an
irredeemably corrupted soul,
disappears back into the black pitch.
Jovial Friars (Hypocrites)
These two (Catalano and Loderingo) were
founders of a religious/military organization
that aimed to protect widows and orphans,
as well as promote peacekeeping.
Since Catalano was a Guelf and Loderingo
a Ghibelline, the pope (Clement IV) sent them
to “keep the peace” in Florence.
This was before the divide within the
Guelf ranks; at this point, they’re still
unabashedly supportive of papal power.
It was therefore no surprise that the Jovial
Friars’ ostensible promises of neutrality soon
gave way to practices that openly favored the
Guelfs, who went on to banish the
Ghibellines.
Caiaphas (Hypocrites)
As the High Priest of Jerusalem, Caiaphas is in a
position to spare Christ; instead, Scripture shows him
advising the Pharisees that “one man should die for the
people” so that “the whole nation perish not” (John
11:50).
Dante, seeing the advice as not only dishonest but
self-serving, places him and his relatives on the floor of
the Sixth Bolgia, where they’re continually stepped on by
the other weighed-down Hypocrites.
This contrapasso – the rhetorical term for the logical
relationships between the sins and their punishments in
Dante’s Hell – has been interpreted in darker terms; at
one point, Dante shows Virgil “marveling” for an
extended period of time at Caiaphas’s punishment, even
though he later rebukes Dante for lingering over the
sight of Master Adam and Sinon fighting.
Some see Virgil’s seemingly hypocritical actions
here as Dante’s way of endorsing the Jews’ persecution
as payback for Christ’s crucifixion; this isn’t a reading I
share, but you should know that interpretation’s out
there.
Vanni Fucci (Thief)
Vanni Fucci was a Black from Pistoia,
Florence’s “rival city,” who committed
many crimes – murder among them.
But he’s placed below the Seventh Circle
because he also stole holy objects from the
Pistoian cathedral.
Fucci just generally seems like a foul
character, even in death – he vindictively
announces the future decimation of the
Whites in order to horrify Dante, then
gestures obscenely at God.
Other shades have done worse things,
but Fucci might be the easiest character to
dislike in the entire Inferno.
Five Noble Thieves
You only need to know what
happens to whom among this
group.
Agnello (Human) merges with
Cianfa (Six-Legged Lizard), who
attacks him.
Buoso (Human) loses his form to
Francesco (Reptile), who attacks
him.
Puccio Sciancato remains
human…for now. But it’s implied
that he’ll be attacked soon.
Ulysses (Evil Counselor)
This is Odysseus from The Odyssey (the Romans
changed Greek names at the drop of a hat), but
Dante hadn’t read it or The Iliad because they
hadn’t been translated.
Instead, he relies on Virgil’s pro-Trojan The
Aeneid, which has many unkind things to say about
the man who inspired the Trojan Horse (talk about
deception!), tricked Achilles into joining the war,
and stole the Palladium from Troy.
The death sequence Dante relates here is
entirely the poet’s creation, and shows the gifted
rhetorician traveling far beyond the realms that
normal men have traveled; he dies on the edge of
Mount Purgatory, which is where we’ll end our
story.
This isn’t an accidental parallel; you’ll notice
Dante begins Canto XXVI by warning himself not to
go too far overboard with his own rhetorical
flourishes while describing what he sees.
Guido da Montefeltro (Evil
Counselor)
Guido was a both a perpetrator and victim of fraud,
much like Ulysses.
He was a Ghibelline military leader outside of
Florence who won several victories over the Guelfs and
even forces who merely fought out of loyalty to the pope.
Once he suffered defeat, he was excommunicated,
only to find even more military success.
Boniface rescinded the excommunication in order to
get him out of the public’s eye, and Guido “converted”
and became a friar.
Once a friar, Boniface compels him to give him
advice about how to destroy the pope’s enemies; when
Guido seems reluctant to answer, Boniface promises the
impossible (to absolve him of a sin in advance), and
Guido complies, telling the pope to extend a false
promise of amnesty to the main family that opposes
him.
He perpetrated that fraud, but was ultimately
betrayed by Boniface, who never absolved him of his sin
– and thus doomed him to the Eighth Circle.
Guido da Montefeltro (Evil
Counselor)
T. S. Eliot uses these lines in the Italian original as
the epigraph to his famous poem about a modern-day
parallel to Guido, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
S’i’ credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria sanza più scosse;
ma però che già mai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s’i’ odo il vero,
sanza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
If I believed that my reply were made
To one who could ever climb to the world again,
This flame would shake no more. But since no shade
Ever returned – if what I am told is true –
From this blind world into the living light,
Without fear of dishonor I answer you.
Mahomet / Ali (Sowers of
Religious Discord)
In one of the uglier instances of medieval
Christian thinking’s influence on the text, Dante
portrays the Muslim world as the Christian world’s
natural enemies.
Mahomet (the founder of Islam) and Ali (his
cousin/son-and-law) seem like they should be major
characters, but they aren’t nearly as important,
backstory-wise, as many of the others.
In fact, they (as individuals) are not necessarily
important.
Dante’s using them to paint a larger picture, one
that indicts all of Islam for its supposed wrongs
against Christianity.
Since we’re in the circle about discord, Dante
can’t have the faith wandering around the
underworld – so he uses (and punishes) people
instead.
Therefore, the men actually function more as
microcosmic symbols for their faith than as real
people.
Mahomet / Ali (Sowers of
Religious Discord)
Islam was a hugely influential cultural
force at a time when Christianity happened to
be facing a number of splits and battles (we’ve
just left the Crusades).
Dante would have been taught (repeatedly,
over the course of his education) to see
Muslims uncritically as divisive and
implacable enemies
One popular (though incorrect) teaching at
the time even held that Mahomet had actually
been a cardinal who sought the papacy, and
who caused a huge schism within Christianity
when he was denied the highest office – one of
the worst wrongs you could commit in Dante’s
eyes.
(Oddly, he seems to have absolutely no
compunction about taking shots at the current
Church itself…)
Pier da Medicina (Sower of
Political Discord)
He turned the leading families of
Ravenna and Rimini against one
another, falsely informing each
that the other plotted to destroy it.
He’s mainly important as a
mouthpiece, as he introduces
Dante to the other Sowers in the
Bolgia.
Mosca dei Lamberti (Political
Discord)
• The original source of the conflict between the Guelfs
and Ghibellines; although deeper political and cultural
issues sustained the conflict, a single incident created it
• A man named Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti courted
a woman from the powerful Amidei family, only to reject
her hand in marriage (choosing instead a member of
the Donati clan)
• Mosca advised the enraged Amideis to take the harshest
revenge they could, and he, the Amideis, and a member
of the Uberti family (Farinata’s ancestor) stabbed
Buondelmonte to death near the statue of Mars (which
the Florentine Suicide alluded to earlier) on Easter
Sunday 1215
• The Buondelmonti family subsequently attacked the
Uberti clan; the former would organize its allies into the
Guelfs, while the latter led what would become the
Ghibellines
Bertrand de Born (Sower of
Familial Discord)
Dante’s most famous contrapasso, Betrand de
Born sowed discord between the English King
Henry II and his son (also creatively named Henry).
Before death, de Born was also a poet of some
renown; Raffa believes Dante was inspired by the
following passage, which “celebrates the mayhem
and violence of warfare”:
Maces, swords, helmets--colorfully—
Shields, slicing and smashing,
We’ll see at the start of the melee
With all those vassals clashing,
And horses running free
From their masters, hit, downtread.
Once the charge has been led,
Every man of nobility
Will hack at arms and heads.
Better than taken prisoner: be dead.
Griffolino d’Arezzo and
Capocchio (Alchemists)
Both men tried to chemically alter metals in order to
appear more valuable – similar in many ways to
counterfeiting.
Griffolino points out that while he’s punished for his
misconduct here, it wasn’t what got him killed; instead,
he jokingly promised a gullible but powerful friend that
he could teach him how to fly.
After failing miserably at flying – and making a fool
of himself in the process – the friend complained to an
inquisitor, who had Griffolino burned at the stake for
supposedly practicing the “dark magic” that would have
allowed the friend to fly.
Capocchio was probably an old classmate of Dante’s
from Florence, as he expects Dante to have recognized
him.
He had a talent for mimicking people and even
objects, but soon turned his attention to making metal
mimic other things.
In the end, a total of three men were paid to burn
him at the stake, indicating that his crimes were fairly
serious.
Gianni Schicchi (Evil
Impersonator)
Gianni appears when he sinks
his teeth into Capocchio and drags
him back into the ditch.
Before his death, he was a
member of the Cavalcanti clan.
He once impersonated a man
who was already dead (Buoso
Donati, whom you remember as
one of the Five Noble Thieves) in
order to dictate a false will – one
that benefitted him hugely.
Master Adam (Counterfeiter)
In certain Circles, shades are hostile to one
another, usually by design (the Hoarders and
the Wasters, the Wrathful and the Sullen); the
Eighth Circle takes that hostility and makes it
much more important.
The sinners behave with hostility towards
one another, whereas the blessed are
supposed to love mankind.
In the Tenth Bolgia, we meet two souls that
seem to be perpetually at war with one
another.
Master Adam manufactured florins
(Florence’s currency) that contained only 21karat gold, making them essentially fake;
apocryphal stories claim that his
counterfeiting operation was prolific enough
to start a currency crisis within Florence.
Sinon (False Witness)
Sinon was introduced to Dante through Virgil’s
Aeneid, which (just as with Ulysses) paints him as a
villain for assisting in the destruction of Troy.
As part of the plot for moving the Trojan Horse inside
the city’s walls, the Greeks “leave” Sinon behind when
they seemingly desert the battlefield.
In actuality, of course, most of them are inside the
horse.
Sinon convinces the Trojans that the Greeks angered
Athena when Odysseus stole the Palladium from Troy,
and that they built the Horse in order to calm her fury; he
even goes so far as to claim that he escaped before they
could sacrifice him in her name in exchange for a safe
voyage home.
Believing the Horse to be a workable replacement
for their stolen Palladium, the Trojans bring the Horse
inside the city in order to placate the gods themselves;
then the Greeks pour out of it at night and destroy
everything.
Thus the Greeks are able to destroy Troy through
dishonor and fraud. Good times!
Nimrod and Antaeus (Giants)
Finally, we get to the Giants, Nimrod and Antaeus.
Nimrod was an extremely tall king whose subjects
decided to build a tower (the Tower of Babel) that would
reach Heaven; a displeased God scatters the people
everywhere and fractures their language irreparably
(Genesis’s explanation for linguistic diversity).
Nimrod’s former subjects no longer understand
each other, and Nimrod himself has been robbed of
sensible language entirely; he just babbles now.
Nimrod’s subjects reflect their ruler’s pride – it takes
a certain audacity to try building something that
reaches into God’s realm without divine permission, and
that audacity results in their punishment.
Antaeus can talk (unlike Nimrod), and is also
unchained; Virgil notes that he wasn’t one of the Giants
who attacked the gods, although he did attack humans
(and was killed by Hercules).
Antaeus is as proud as Nimrod; the poets reach the
Ninth Circle because Virgil appeals to his pride, telling
him that Dante will renew his reputation as a fearsome
warrior in the living world if he helps them.