Notes
to Dante's Inferno
InfNote 2. Chronology, See also the
Chronology of the Purgatorio and Paradiso.
InfNote 3. The Salvation of Italy
InfNote 4. Ciacco’s prophecy in Canto VI.
InfNote 7. The Old Man of Crete.
InfNote 8. The Origins of Florence.
InfNote 9. Vanni Fucci’s prophecy.
InfNote 10. Montereggione and the bronze
pine-cone of St Peter’s.
The regions of Dante's Hell are subdivided, mirroring his descent with Virgil, as follows. The conception derives from Aristotle, Cicero, and Christian teachings. There are twenty-four divisions in all. There are three major groupings divided into seven Circles, consisting of those who failed to exercise self-control (Circles 2-5), the violent (Circle 7), and the fraudulent and traitorous (Circles 8-9). Added to these are the Heathen (Circle 1), the Heretics (Circle 6) and, outside the Acheron, the spiritually neutral. There are thus nine Circles, plus the region this side of Acheron, making ten major divisions. This pattern of three, divided to make seven, augmented to nine and then ten, is the fundamental architecture of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. The keynote of Hell is Charity or Pity, of the Purgatorio, Hope, and of the Paradiso, Faith.
Canto III. This side of Acheron. The Dark Plain.
The spiritually neutral, who lived 'without praise or blame' and the angels who 'were neither faithful nor rebellious'. Their punishment is to ' have no hope of death' and to 'envy every other condition than their own'.
Canto IV. The First Circle. Limbo. The Heathens.
Those who lived before Christianity or were unbaptised. Their punishment
is 'without hope to live in desire'
Canto V. The Second Circle. Hell proper. The first division of those lacking self-restraint. The Carnal sinners.
The carnal sinners, blown endlessly
though the air in darkness.
Canto VI. The Third Circle. The second division of those lacking self-restraint. The Gluttonous.
The gluttons, drenched in hail, snow and
dark water.
Canto VII. The Fourth Circle. The third division of those lacking self-restraint. The Avaricious and the Prodigal.
The misers and the spendthrifts,
endlessly rolling heavy weights.
Canto VII. The Fifth Circle. The Styx. The fourth division of those lacking self-restraint. The Angry and the Sullen.
The angry and sullen, sunk in the Stygian marsh. On top are the wrathful
struggling with each other, below under the bog are the sullen and lazy who
'sigh and make it bubble at the surface'.
Cantos IX and X. The City of Dis (Lucifer, Satan). The Sixth Circle. The Heretics.
The Heretics and their followers,
incarcerated in red-hot tombs.
Canto XII. The Seventh Circle of the Violent. The First Round. The River of Blood. The Violent against others.
The violent against others, the murderers, tyrants, and assassins, sunk
in the River of Blood. They are guarded by Centaurs.
Canto XIII. The Seventh Circle of the Violent. The Second Round. The Wood of Suicides. The Violent against themselves.
The suicides, transformed to trees which
bleed etc.
Cantos XIV-XVII. The Seventh Circle of the Violent. The Third Round. The Plain of Burning Sand. The violent against God and Nature.
The violent against God, the blasphemers, lying supine on the burning
sand. The violent against Nature, the sodomites, roaming the sand. The violent
against Nature and Art, the usurers, crouched on the sand.
Canto XVIII. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The First Chasm. The pimps and seducers.
The pimps and seducers scourged by
horned Demons.
Canto XVIII. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Second Chasm. The flatterers.
The flatterers, smeared with filth and
excrement.
Canto XIX. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Third Chasm. The Simonists, those who sell spiritual offices.
The Simonists, the soles of their feet
seared endlessly with fire.
Canto XX. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Fourth Chasm. The augerers, diviners, astrologers and prophets.
The augerers, their faces twisted round,
forced to walk backwards.
Cantos XXI-XXIII. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Fifth Chasm. The Barrators, who exploited their public office.
The barrators, barterers, or peculators covered in boiling pitch, and
guarded and tormented by Demons.
Canto XXIII. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Sixth Chasm. The hypocrites.
The hypocrites, weighed down with cloaks
of gilded lead.
Cantos XXIV-XXV. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Seventh Chasm. The thieves.
The thieves, in the ditch of dragons and
serpents.
Cantos XXVI-XXVII. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Eighth Chasm. The evil counsellors.
The evil counsellors, wrapped in flames
of conscience.
Canto XXVIII. The Eighth Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Ninth Chasm. The sowers of discord.
The sowers of dissension, discord, scandal, sectarianism and schism. Their bodies are split or mutilated in some way reflecting their sin.
Cantos XXIX-XXX. The Eight Circle of the Fraudulent. Malebolge. The Tenth and last Chasm. The forgers.
The forgers and falsifiers in things, actions and words, tormented by
disease and putrefaction.
Canto XXXII. The Ninth Circle of the Treacherous. Cocytus. The Central Pit or Well. The First Ring. Caïna. Treachery against kin.
The traitors to their kin, frozen in the ice. The ring is named after Cain, who murdered Abel.
Canto XXXII-XXXIII. The Ninth Circle of the Treacherous. Cocytus. The Central Pit or Well. The Second Ring. Antenora. Treachery against country.
The traitors to their city or country, frozen in the ice. The ring is
named after Antenor who was supposed to
have betrayed Troy to the Greeks.
Canto XXXIII. The Ninth Circle of the Treacherous. Cocytus. The Central Pit or Well. The Third Ring. Ptolomaea. Treachery against friends and guests.
The treacherous to friends and guests, frozen in the ice. The ring is
named after Ptolemy the murderer of Simon Maccabeus.
Canto XXXIV. The Ninth Circle of the Treacherous. The Central Pit or Well. The Fourth and Last Ring. The Judecca. The traitors to their lords and benefactors.
The betrayers of their masters and benefactors, fixed solid under the
ice. The winged form of the Arch
Traitor Satan at the centre, towards whom all streams of Guilt flow, frozen
from the chest downwards. The ring is
named after Judas, the disciple who
betrayed Christ.
The Vision is set in 1300, when Dante was thirty-five, in
the middle of a seventy-year life-span (Inf I:1, Inf XVIII:28-33, Inf XXI:112-114, Purg II:98-99, Par IX: 40). It is Easter. The poem begins at
the Spring Equinox and the sun’s position remains fixed throughout, in
Aries, as according to medieval tradition it was at the Creation. (Inf I:38-40,
Par X:7-33, Par I:37-44).
The Inferno begins on the evening prior to Good
Friday (Inf XXI:112-114) at the full moon (Inf XX:124-127, Inf
XXI:112-114, Purg IX:1-9). The full set of conditions is imaginary, not
corresponding to the actual equinox of 1300.
With the sun at the equinox, the sun will be in
the following signs during the day:
Sunrise, 6-8am Aries 8-10am Taurus 10-12noon Gemini
12-2pm Cancer 2-4pm
Leo 4-6pm, Sunset Virgo
The following signs will be rising in the east and setting in the west
during the night:
Rising 6pm Libra 8pm Scorpio 10pm Sagittarius
12midnight Capricorn 2am Aquarius 4am Pisces
Setting 6pm Aries 8pm Taurus
10pm Gemini
12midnight Cancer
2am Leo 4am Virgo
Inferno Canto I:1-60.The poem
opens on the evening prior to Good Friday in the dark wood. Dante witnesses the
dawn of Good Friday at 6am on the equinox with the sun rising in Aries. He meets Virgil and travels with him until the
evening of Good Friday.
Inferno Canto II:1-42. The canto starts at the evening of Good Friday.
Inferno Canto VII:67-99. At this point in the Fifth Circle it is past
midnight since the stars of Libra (The scales
of Justice) that were ascending in the evening sky are now falling from the
mid-heaven. It is now Saturday pre-dawn.
Inferno Canto XI:94-115. At the end of the canto, before the descent
to the Seventh Circle, Pisces, the Fishes, is
visible on the horizon and must have risen in the east at 4am some time before.
Bootës, or the Wain, is (correctly: see a star chart for the northern
hemisphere in April, or observe it) in the north-west. (Caurus is the
north-west wind). It is therefore near dawn of Saturday.
Inferno Canto XX:100-130. At the end of the canto, in the Fourth Chasm of
the Eighth Circle, the moon is about to set over the Pillars of Hercules in the
West. Being full it will have set at dawn on Good Friday and now a day later
will set after dawn. Dante does take account of the moon’s daily movement (See
Purg IX:1-11). The moon moves about 12 degrees a day, relative to the ‘fixed’
stars, which equates to 48 minutes, and has not yet set, though it is touching
the horizon, so subject to Dante’s astronomical sources, it is approximately
6.45am on Saturday morning, possibly a little earlier.
Inferno Canto XXI:97-139. At this point of the Fifth Chasm of the Eighth
Circle it is five hours earlier than the time of Christ’s death, at noon, so it
is 7am Saturday. (As the Easter of the year 1300 =1266+34 full years from the
crucifixion on Good Friday, supposing Christ to be incarnated in December of BC1 and to die at age 33, celebrating the
anniversary of his 33rd year in December 33AD)
Inferno Canto XXIX:1-36. The moon is at nadir, in the Tenth Chasm, and
allowing for its daily movement it is therefore approximately 1pm on the
Saturday.
Inferno Canto XXXIV:55-69. It is 6pm Saturday and night is falling as the
poets leave Hell by clambering down Satan’s sides then turning and climbing up
to the little sphere which marks the reverse side of the deepest point of the
Judecca. This takes them an hour and a half until 7.30pm Saturday.
Inferno Canto XXXIV:70-139. It is morning on the opposite side of the earth
to Jerusalem, and evening in Hell is dawn there. It is now mid-tierce,
the middle of the first of the four canonical divisions of the day. At the
equinox each takes three hours, so tierce is 6am to 9am and we may take it that
it is now 7.30am Sunday as the poets begin their ascent by the channel
cut there by the River Lethe. Their ascent to the foot of Mount Purgatory takes
them all this Sunday and Sunday night, so that they complete it just before
dawn on the morning of Easter Monday.
There are various interpretations of Dante’s imagery, for example that
the leopard (panther) represents Florence and worldly pleasure, lust or envy;
the lion the Royal House of France, and ambition or pride; the she-wolf the
Papacy, and avarice. Lust, pride and avarice are the three roots of sin. The
imagery of the three animals may come from Jeremiah (v.6). The she-wolf, the
Papacy, made many alliances.
The Greyhound (Veltro) has been suggested to be Can Grande della Scala, born in
Verona, between Feltro in Venetia and Montefeltro in Romagna, the
great Ghibelline leader. Dante’s later patron, he may have been regarded by
Dante as the deliverer who would restore Imperial power, reinstitute Roman law,
eliminate avarice, bring peace, and establish a reformed order of things.
Dante, whose father Aldighiero was a Guelf, and
supporter of the papacy, traced his ancestry back to Cacciaguida, a crusader under Emperor
Conrad III, and identified with the Romans who had allied Florence to Imperial
Rome. He was of the populo vecchio, the populus, the old
inhabitants, not the plebs, from Fiesole etc. Dante’s opposition however to the dishonesty and corruption of
the Papacy under Boniface VIII aligned him with the Ghibelline pro-Imperial
cause, and opposed him to the pro-Papacy Guelfs. The Florentine families also
split between the local Bianchi (white) and Neri (black) factions. Dante’s
family belonged to the Bianchi. Ultimately the Bianchi combined with the old
half-suppressed Ghibelline party, and the Neri aligned with the Papacy,
claiming to represent the old Guelph traditions of Florence.
Dante’s personal ideals when fully developed
were for an apolitical Church, and an
earthly Empire, both enfranchised by God, supreme in their own spheres, one of
spiritual and the other temporal power. He was therefore opposed to the Guelf
principles of his father (the Ultramontanism of Gregory VII and Innocent III),
and to the democracy and plutocracy of Florence. He was equally opposed to the
supremacy of State over Church asserted by the Emperors Henry IV and Frederick
II, by Henry II of England, and Philip the Fair of France. Dante therefore
found himself ‘a party of one’ caught in the cross-currents of his time,
supporting an autocratic view of the Imperial State, and a desire for a reformed,
spiritual Papacy.
An alternative candidate for ‘the Greyhound’ is
Uguccione della Faggiuola, head of the Ghibelline forces at Lucca in 1315 when
the Guelphs were driven out, and at the siege of Montecatini (within ten miles
of Florence) where he gained a decisive victory. However Uguccione was eclipsed
by 1316.
Inferno Canto VI:64-93. Ciacco prophesies the events in Florence
between April 1300, the date of the vision, and April 1303. Pope Boniface the
VII exerted pressure on Florence to accept his authority. Dante was at Rome in
May 1300, and returned quickly to Florence where he was appointed to the
electoral body. Boniface then gave support to the Black (Neri) Guelphs against
the White (Bianchi) Ghibellines who insisted on church reforms, and political
liberty. The Whites lead by Vieri de’ Cerchi,
were ‘the party of the woods’ since the Cerchi came from the wooded Val di
Sieve in the Mugello.
The city expelled both Corso Donati, the leader of the Blacks,
and the Cerchi (who included Dante’s friend, the poet Guido Cavalcanti.) This action, that Dante
supported, led to life-long enmity against him. Corso Donati went to Rome, and
allied himself to the Pope. Boniface VII
allied himself in turn to Philip the Fair,
Philip the IVth, of France against the Empire of Albert of Hapsburg. (‘King of the Romans’),
Dante called this the alliance of the new Pilate and the New Pharisees, or the
giant and the harlot (the Papacy) embracing.
Charles of Valois, the
French king’s brother, crossed the Alps in August of 1301, and after treating
with Florence, entered the city peaceably on November 1st. The banished Blacks
followed him in large numbers. Corso Donati returned on November 5th. The
houses of the Whites were sacked and burned, and the Prior, the magistrates
were deposed. The Bianchi, the Whites were condemned and exiled. Dante was
aligned with a weak Ghibelline party supporting a weak and uncommitted Imperial
presence, and opposed by a strong Guelf party (aligned with France, and
therefore a caricature of Dante’s Ghibelline beliefs) supporting a corrupt
Papacy. What Dante desired was a reformed Papacy in the spiritual sphere,
balanced with a strong Imperial presence derived from Roman Imperial history in
the secular sphere. In different times he would have been a Guelph like his
father in spirit, and a supporter of the Ghibelline Empire in secular
practice. In April 1302 he heard that he had been exiled with the Whites, the
Ghibellines. He never returned to Florence.
In March 1303 the exiled
Whites under Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi (strangely a papal vicar, indicating a
growing rift between Boniface and the French) tried to force an entry into
Florence. It failed and many were taken prisoner and beheaded. France, the
‘giant’, had triumphed, and his ‘paramour’ Boniface VII died in October 1303,
his policy having led to Italian disaster.
See also Vanni Fucci’s prophecy.
Inferno Canto IX:106-133. Dante compares the plain of Dis full of heretic tombs with Arles and Pola. Arles, in Provence, in southern France, at the mouth of the River Rhone, has at Aleschans (Les Alyscamps) rows of tombs, the graves of Charlemagne’s warriors, according to legend, buried there after the rout at Roncesvalles (See ‘The Song of Roland’), and of the Christian dead from the battle of Aleschans where the Saracens defeated William of Orange. (See Van Gogh’s painting ‘Les Alyscamps’, Niarchos Collection, Athens, and his letter to Theo, no559, Nov 1888, where he talks of ‘rows of old Roman tombs’.)
Pola (modern Pula) is a seaport, at the southern tip of Istria (modern Istra), that promontory, once belonging to Venice, and hence part of Italy, that hangs down into the Adriatic to the East of the Golfo di Venezia. The promontory on the East is bounded by the Gulf of Quarnaro (modern Kvarner). It is said that numbers of Slavonians were brought there for burial, and it has Roman remains.
Inferno Canto XI:1-66. The city of Sodom represented unnatural vice (Genesis XIX), while Cahors in Guyenne (on the River Lot) in southern France was notorious for its usurers, in the Middle Ages, so that ‘Caorsinus’ was a synonym for ‘usurer’.
Inferno Canto XIV:73-120. An allegory of human history. The concept is from Daniel ii. 32. The four metals are the four ages of man: gold, silver, bronze, and iron (See also Ovid’s Metamorphoses I). The iron and clay feet, are secular and spiritual authority, the latter foot being the one humanity looks to for support, but weakened and corrupted by temporal power. Crete in Virgil’s Aeneid iii 104-5 is the ‘cradle of our (Roman) race’ traced back via Troy to Teucer. Damietta stands for Egypt, superseded by Rome. The golden age alone was free of tears.
Inferno Canto XV:43-78. According to tradition Catiline was besieged, by Caesar, in Fiesole (Faesulae), in the hills, three miles north-west of Florence. When the town fell a new town was established, in the valley, by the River Arno. The inhabitants were a mixture of Fiesolans and Roman soldiers. The Florentine commoners (Whites) were held to be descended from the Fiesolans, the nobility (Blacks) from the Romans. This was regarded as a source of the future conflicts. Dante was for a reformed Papacy and a strong (Holy Roman) Empire, and was active in the expulsion of both Whites and Blacks from Florence, he was therefore opposed by both parties, though ostensibly a Ghibelline (his father having been a Guelf) and courted and vilified by both. Dante is reconciled to this, and Farinata’s, prophecy, of a troubled exile.
Inferno Canto XXIV:130-151. Vanni Fucci prophesies the defeat
of the Ghibelline Whites (Bianci) by the Black Guelph (Neri) faction. The
Blacks were expelled from Pistoia in May 1301. Dante was one of those who voted
for the expulsions. In November 1301 the Blacks entered Florence, aided by Charles de Valois, and in April 1302
made the city drive out the Whites (changing the people, and its laws). Pistoia
became a rallying point for the Whites in Tuscany, until their defeat by the
Florentine and Lucchese Guelfs, under Moroello Malaspina, Marquis of
Giovagallo in Valdimagra (the extremity of Lunigiana). Piceno’s field is the
area between Serravalle and Montecatini. Malaspina took Serravalle in 1302, and
reduced Pistoia in 1306. Pistoia was said to have been founded by the remnants
of Catiline’s army, leading to Dante’s comment in the next Canto (‘you outdo
your seed in evil-doing’)
See also Ciacco’s Prophecy
Inferno Canto XXXI:1-45The Giants appear like the twelve turrets of
the castle of Montereggione eight miles north-west of Siena, between it and San
Gimignano. They were the monstrous sons of Earth and Tartarus, with many arms,
and serpent feet, who made war against the gods, scaling heaven by piling
mountains on one another (Mount Pelion on Mount Ossa, and both on Olympus.).
They were overthrown by Jupiter’s thunderbolts and buried under Sicily.
Inferno Canto XXXI:46-81. The bronze pine-cone, to which Dante compares
the size of Nimrod’s head, once on the
top of the Mausoleum of Adrian and then moved to the Vatican Gardens, stood in
front of St Peter’s, and was between seven and eight feet high.