The souls of the fraudulent occupy ten ditches -- the malebolge (‘evil pouches’) -- that together comprise the eighth circle of Hell. These bolge form a concentric spiral leading down to the funnel-like center of Hell; the ditches are separated from each other by tall rock walls which are, in turn, connected by rocky archways that serve Dante and Virgil as bridges enabling their descent toward the pit of Hell, where Lucifer resides.
Top and cross-section view of the eighth circle of Hell and top view of the ninth. - Giovanni Agnelli, Topo-cronografia del viaggio dantesco, Hoepli, Milan, 1891, plate 2. McGill Rare Books and Special Collections, folio PQ4402 A27t 1891.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 18, 1-6
Making his way clockwise along the outer edge of the first bolgia with Virgil, Dante notices two processions of damned souls at the bottom circling the ditch in opposite directions to each other. The outer procession, nearest the poets, are pimps; the inner procession are seducers. Each is whipped ceaselessly and indiscriminately by devils.
Reaching the first bridge that will allow the poets to cross the ditch, Virgil takes the opportunity of this privileged vantage point to draw Dante’s attention to Jason, the mythological Greek hero who, strutting around the ditch with royal flair, is here punished for having seduced and abandoned Hypsipyle and Medea.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 18, 82-87
On the other side of the first bridge, Dante and Virgil are assailed by the unthinkable stench of the second bolgia, where the flatterers are plunged eternally in what appears to be (or at least smells to be) feces. The poets pause in the middle of the second bridge for as long as their noses will allow.
They take a closer look at the souls punished below, amongst whom Dante recognizes Alessio Interminelli, a contemporary of his from Lucca.
Dante and Virgil observe the flatterers (illustration by Gustave Doré). - Dante Alighieri, L’Enfer, Paris, Hachette, 1868, plate 43. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des livres rares et collections spéciales, Bibliothèque Léo-Pariseau, PQ43152F561868.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 18, 112-117
Simony is the act of selling or buying a spiritual good or a religious office for temporal gain, and in the third bolgia,
such sinful behavior is punished by placing the damned head-first in a rocky hole while the soles of their feet, flailing above the ground, are lit on fire.
While walking across the third bridge with Virgil, Dante’s eyes are drawn to a pair of feet being charred by especially vivid flames; the two poets thus descend into the ditch to discover to whom these feet belong.
Dante and Virgil descend into the bolgia of the Simoniacs (reproduction of Sandro Botticelli’s drawing). - La Divina Commedia or The Divine Vision of Dante Alighieri in Italian and English, London, The Nonesuch Press, 1928, plate 5. McGill Rare Books and Special Collections, folio Colgate 6N 663 D36 1928.
Pope Nicholas III introduces himself to the visitors and foretells that his papal successors, Boniface VIII and Clement V, will soon join him in this punishment, pushing Nicholas himself deeper into the rock. During the trek back up the rock face toward the next bolgia, Dante is moved by an impassioned invective denouncing Simoniacal popes and the corruption of the Church.
As a soul in the afterlife, Nicholas III possesses an almost oracular awareness of events that have yet to occur. This is how he knows that Boniface VIII and Clement V will be his successors not only on the papal throne but also in the third bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell. Boniface VIII, born Benedetto Caetani, was pope from 1294 to 1303 and a formidable adversary to the French King Philip the Fair; he was also Dante’s political enemy insofar as he was responsible, amongst other things, for banishing the White Guelphs from Florence. Clement V, born Bertrand de Got, was pope from 1305 to 1314 and responsible for shifting the papal residence from Rome to Avignon, thus inaugurating the controversial seventy-year period of Avignonese Papacy. The Comedy pilgrimage, which Dante claims to have undergone in 1300, predates the death of either pope, but this does not stop the poet from assigning each a place in Hell.
Argument and opening of Inferno XIX, featuring the apostrophe to the biblical mage Simon. - Dante Alighieri, L’Enfer, translated by Rivarol, Paris, Librairie de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1875, plate 2, p. 13. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des livres rares et collections spéciales, Collection Joseph-Édouard-Perrault, PERRAULT 2008.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 19, 22-29
Now crossing the fourth bridge, Dante can see below him the awkward ambling of the soothsayers and sorcerers punished in the fourth bolgia. Having sought a divine vision far beyond their ken, these souls are condemned in death to wander this ditch with their heads twisted backwards on their necks so that they can no longer see where they are going. The sight disturbs Dante, who is moved to pity these souls and mixes his tears with theirs; Virgil, however, reprimands this display of emotion -- his pity, his guide notes, is misplaced -- and directs his gaze to particular figures. Among these is the prophetess Manto, whose appearance elicits from Virgil an account of the mythical origins of his hometown, Mantua.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 20, 40-45.
In the bottom margin of the two leaves, a drawing shows Dante and Virgil meeting the sorcerers and soothsayers. - Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale « Vittorio Emanuele III », XIII.C.4, f. 10v-11r.
The moon, which Dante observed was full in the dark wood at the beginning of his journey, has now reached the horizon line delimiting the two hemispheres of the Earth; Virgil makes use of this astronomical imagery to inform Dante that it is just past six in the morning.
Moving from bridge to bridge, Dante and Virgil arrive at the fifth bolgia, a pit of boiling pitch in which crooks and swindlers who made use of their public office for illicit ends are forever punished, and are forbidden from raising their heads above the tar; should they dare come up for air, they are savagely skewered and beaten by a group of devils known as the Malebranche.
Following a brief conversation with one of the damned in this bolgia, Dante and Virgil reach an impasse: the sixth bridge, which they had intended to use to cross over to the seventh bolgia, has collapsed, having been destroyed in the earthquake that shook Hell to its core following Christ’s death 1266 years prior to the poets’ arrival. Malacoda, the leader of the Malebranche, delights in informing them of their misfortune. Dante takes a moment to speak to Ciampolo, a crook from Navarre whom the devils have harpooned, before seeking a new way forward with Virgil. Moving carefully along the rocky outcrop, the poets deliberate, but the devils are not keen on letting their potential new victims slip away; Virgil thus wraps Dante in his arms and pulls him down into the sixth bolgia, away from the devils and their meat hooks.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 21, 136-139
Malacoda, Farfarello, Alichino, Barbariccia, Libicocco, Cagnazzo, Rubicante, Calcabrina and Draghignazzo all form part of a “comedy of devils” that Dante stages in the fifth bolgia. On the one hand, the Malebranche troupe plays Dante and Virgil for fools by sending them on a pointless errand to find an unbroken bridge they know does not exist; on the other hand, the devils are themselves played for fools by Ciampolo, who cunningly evades their clutches and pulls two of them into the boiling pitch after him. Dante may attempt to underscore the devils’ malevolence and their brute violence, but the Malebranche nonetheless remain grotesque victims of their own mediocrity, at once degrading and ugly, which is accented by grimaces and flatulence.
This illumination, placed at the end of Inferno 20, shows Dante and Virgil encountering the Malebranche devils, one of whom is making a trumpet of his behind. - Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Palatino 313, f. 51v.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 22, 139-144
In the two drawings in the bottom margins, Dante and Virgil run away from the devils pursuing them. - Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale « Vittorio Emanuele III », XIII.C.4, f. 14v-15r.
Tumbling down into the sixth bolgia, Dante and Virgil encounter the hypocrites, who are cloaked in golden monks’ habits lined with lead. The damned here trudge laboriously around their ditch, weighed down by their heavy clothing, while other hypocrites lie crucified to the ground, condemned to perpetual trampling. Caiaphas is among those nailed to the ground, suffering his due contrapasso, as are the other members of the Sanhedrin that sentenced Jesus to death under false pretenses.
To reach the next bolgia, the damned suggest that the poets clamber up the rockface where the ruins of one of the collapsed bridges lie. The climb proves challenging.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 23, 61-66
In this line drawing, Dante and Virgil observe Caiaphas the hypocrite who is crucified to the ground. - Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 90 inf. 42, f. 106v.
Having reached the edge of the next bolgia, Dante and Virgil regain their original path and walk across the rocky archway that takes them over the seventh ditch. A horrified Dante stares transfixedly at the bestial metamorphoses undergone by the thieves punished in this bolgia.
Dante and Virgil observe the thieves being assaulted by serpents, among whom is the centaur, Cacus; (wood engraving by Jacques Beltrand, modeled on a Sandro Botticelli drawing). - Sixième centenaire de Dante Alighieri, 1321-1921 : bulletin du jubilé, Paris, L’Art catholique, 1921, p. 136. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des lettres et sciences humaines, Collection de l’Institut d’études médiévales, PQ 4364 S625 1921.
A horde of serpents repeatedly assaults the souls of the damned, with the snakes wrapping themselves around the thieves and restraining their hands while they struggle to evade the snakes' fangs and constrictions. The snake bodies mesh with the thieves’ human forms, giving birth to terrifying reptilian hybrids. The thieves are thus deprived of their humanity.
Virgil directs Dante’s gaze to the centaur, Cacus, here represented in human form. - Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 90 inf. 42, f. 112v.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 25, 49-54
Dante and Virgil observe the thieves assaulted by snakes in the seventh bolgia. - Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale « Vittorio Emanuele III », XIII.C.4, f. 18v-19r.
Amongst the souls punished here, Dante recognizes Vanni Fucci of Pistoia and at least five fellow Florentines. The encounter incites him to rage against the moral depravity of Florentine citizens and to warn the reader of the city’s future misfortunes.
Like a valley overflowing with fireflies, the eighth bolgia is dotted with a multitude of individual flames. Each of these conceals an evil counselor, a person who, while living, employed their intellect in the service of trickery and misdirection. From atop the rocky archway that the two have begun to cross, Dante asks Virgil to identify the figures engulfed in a double flame; the latter informs him that the tormented are Ulysses, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, and Diomedes, his close friend and brother in arms. The poets approach the Greek pair and Ulysses recounts his last and fatal maritime adventure into uncharted waters. With his select crew, Ulysses sailed past the Pillars of Hercules and beyond the Strait of Gibraltar.
In the illumination, Dante and Virgil are conversing with Guido da Montefeltro. - Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Palatino 313, f. 63v-64r.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 26, 112-120
The Divine Will, however, bends not to human arrogance nor to human desire for forbidden knowledge: just as Ulysses and his crew begin to see Mount Purgatory on the horizon, a terrible tempest strikes them down, wrecking their ship and drowning them in a violent whirlpool. His tale told, Ulysses ceases speaking, and his flame burns with less vigor.
Ulysses’ many ruses and ingenious deceptions are underlined by Virgil, who is well versed in the Iliad and the Odyssey and thus quite knowledgeable regarding the Greek hero’s life and accomplishments. The conversation with Ulysses focuses instead on the final events of his life, with which Dante is less familiar. Driven by his desire to explore the entire world, Ulysses gathered together a select crew of old friends and comrades in arms to sail into uncharted waters, beyond the borders of the known world.
The journey lasts months on end, but Ulysses continues to encourage his crewmates to persevere, to keep striving toward new heights of virtue and knowledge. His quest, however, motivated by human desire devoid of divine inspiration, is doomed from the start.
Another damned soul next interpellates Dante and Virgil. It is Guido da Montefeltro, a well-known politician and mercenary leader. Guido questions Dante on the current political state of Romagna, his home region, and in exchange tells the poets the story of his damnation. He had put his faith in a full absolution from Boniface VIII for his salvation while living, which in death proved utterly worthless.
Dante and Virgil reach the ninth bolgia, where the sowers of discord are repeatedly slashed by a devil’s sword: each time they complete one round of the circular ditch, their previous wounds heal and they are maimed afresh in a manner resembling Prometheus' punishment. Pierced necks, severed noses, shredded bodies, amputated limbs and torsos: such is the spectacle that unfolds before Dante’s eyes as he gazes upon these sinners.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 28, 37-42
Dante and Virgil with Bertrand de Born, who holds his severed head by the hair, and the other mutilated souls of the sowers of discord. - Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 40.7, f. 60v.
Leaving behind the damned of the ninth bolgia, Dante does not notice that a cousin of his resides in their midst; Virgil points out this relative to him while the two poets cross over to the tenth bolgia. Sliding down the rock face of this final bolgia to more easily approach the falsifiers punished within, Dante is overcome by the stench of gangrenous flesh emanating from the damned. For different crimes, different sentences: alchemists, who specialize in falsifying metals, lie prone, covered in scabs and leprosy; impersonators, afflicted with rabies, run around biting others; counterfeiters suffer from dropsy, their stomachs ballooning outward and their faces gaunt; and liars, consumed by fever, reek of burnt oil.
Dante and Virgil in the bolgia of the falsifiers (engraving by William Blake). - Blake’s Illustrations to Dante, seven illustrations bound in an undated volume. McGill Rare Books and Special Collections, Blake 2.1 B4 I42 1800z elf.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 29, 67-72
Dante and Virgil awestruck by the Giants. - La Divina Commedia: novamente illustrata da artisti italiani, Florence, Alinari, 1902-1903, p. 120. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des livres rares et collections spéciales, Collection générale, PQ 4302 F02 1902.
Dante and Virgil depart from the falsifiers to continue along their journey. From afar they spot the giants, tall as towers, who are chained to the precipice separating the eighth and ninth circles of Hell. Alongside Nimrod, who had built the tower of Babel, Virgil recognizes other giants drawn from Greek mythology.
When the poets arrive before Antaeus, the only unchained giant, Virgil requests his aid to descend the Giants’ Well to reach the ninth circle. Without uttering a sound, Antaeus picks up Virgil and a terrified Dante in his hand and gently puts them down in Lowest Hell.
In the historiated initial F, the giant Antaeus carries Dante and Virgil down to the ninth circle of Hell. - Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari 39, f. 130r.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 31, 139-145