After they have talked with the notorious thief Vanni Fucci, Dante and Virgil move on and meet a centaur, identified by Virgil as Cacus, who had been killed by Hercules. Dante’s classical reference here is a little strange in that he gives an account of the killing of Cacus according to Livy, rather than Virgil’s version in his Aeneid.

The centaur flees, leaving the pair to meet three more tormented souls. A lizard-like creature then attaches itself to one of them named Agnello, a member of a prominent Florentine Ghibelline family, and their two bodies become one. Another is pierced by a serpent through his navel, and Dante witnesses other horrific reptilian transformations.

Having found five citizens of Florence in this rottenpocket of Hell, Virgil leads Dante through shattered rock to the eighth, where each of the souls is burning with fire in the pit in return for their fraudulent lives.

Virgil explains that among them are Ulysses and Diomedes, who are united in a single flame, telling an invented story of their final and fateful voyage. Dante didn’t have direct access to Homeric accounts of the adventures of Odysseus, so based this on Virgil’s contrasting retelling of the deception of the Trojan horse.

After that, another flame identifies itself as Guido da Montefeltro, and relates some of its life as a sly Ghibelline military leader who later repented and became a Franciscan friar.

Virgil takes Dante on to the ninth rottenpocket, where those who used fraud to incite division are suffering for their crimes. The gruesome sight awaiting them here is of gross mutilations, bodies chopped up and torn apart so that their organs spill out. They meet a succession of dismembered and dissected spirits, including Mosca de’ Lamberti, both of whose hands have been cut off. He had been responsible for creating the rift between Guelphs and Ghibellines that scarred Florentine history for so long. Another body passes by carrying its severed head like a lantern from one of its hands. The head tells them that he is Bertran de Born, a Provençal troubadour who sowed discord between King Henry II of England and his son Prince Henry.

Dante is so astonished by this display of butchery that he stands and stares at the bodies, but Virgil reminds him that they must move on.

The pair then reach a viewpoint over the last of the rottenpockets, from which arises a foul smell. The souls there are all covered with festering sores and scabs, and can only crawl over one another.

There they hear the story of Capocchio, an alchemist who falsely claimed to be able to transform base metals into gold.

The artists

William Blake (1757–1827) was a British visionary painter and illustrator whose last and incomplete work was an illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy for the painter John Linnell. Most of his works shown in this series were created for that, although he did draw and paint scenes during his earlier career. I have a major series on his work here.

Gustave Doré (1832–1883) was the leading French illustrator of the nineteenth century, whose paintings are still relatively unknown. Early in his career, he produced a complete set of seventy illustrations for translations of the Inferno, first published in 1857 and still being used. These were followed in 1867 by more illustrations for Purgatorio and Paradiso. This article looks at his paintings.

John Flaxman (1755–1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman who occasionally painted too. When he was in Rome between 1787-91, he produced drawings for book illustrations, including a set of 111 for an edition of The Divine Comedy. In 1810, he was appointed the Professor of Sculpture to the Royal Academy in London, and in 1817 made drawings to illustrate Hesiod, which were engraved by William Blake.

Jan van der Straet, also commonly known by his Italianised name of Giovanni Stradano (1523-1605), was a painter who started his career in Bruges and Antwerp in Belgium, but moved to Florence in 1550, where he worked for the remainder of his life. Mannerist in style, he worked with printmakers in Antwerp to produce collections of prints, including an extensive set for The Divine Comedy.

References

Wikipedia
Danteworlds

Robin Kirkpatrick (trans) (2012) Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, Penguin Classics. ISBN 978 0 141 19749 4.
Richard Lansing (ed) (2000) The Dante Encyclopedia, Routledge. ISBN 978 0 415 87611 7.
Guy P Raffa (2009) The Complete Danteworlds, A Reader’s Guide to the Divine Comedy, Chicago UP. ISBN 978 0 2267 0270 4.
Prue Shaw (2014) Reading Dante, From Here to Eternity, Liveright. ISBN 978 1 63149 006 4.

When a group of devils armed with long hooks threatens Dante, Virgil hurries him along towards the next rottenpocket in Hell. They work their way around some of the damage wrought by Christ’s harrowing of Hell following his crucifixion. With those devils still hanging around, they then reach a pit of boiling tar, in which the spirits of barrators are trapped. These had traded in public office and bought influence in courts of law.

The devils pull out one of the souls for Dante and Virgil to talk to, but quickly return to hacking with their hooks.

Unlike others, he springs free and escapes their lunges as he plunges back into the pitch.

Dante and Virgil leave the devils attacking other barrators, and walk on in silence. Dante reflects on one of Aesop’s fables about the frog, the rat and the hawk. He blames himself for the tormenting of the devils behind them, but as he looks back he sees them on the wing again heading towards them. As they cross into the next rottenpocket, they realise the pack of devils can’t pursue them beyond that point.

Next are hypocrites, who are dressed up in hooded habits like monks. Although those are coloured bright gold, they’re weighted with lead, forcing the hypocrites into eternal labour against the mass of their clothes.

Dante meets two Bolognese friars, Catalano de’ Malavolti and Loderingo degli Andalò, who formed a fake religious order. They point out a figure staked out naked on the ground, who is Caiaphas, the High Priest of Jerusalem who advised scribes and pharisees that Christ’s death would be a good solution.

Virgil moves Dante on towards the damaged crossing to the next rottenpocket for thieves. After negotiating their descent, Dante sees its pit full of snakes, binding the hands of the souls there and covering their naked bodies.

A snake strikes one of the sinners at the back of the neck, causing the ghost to burst into flames then turn into ash, which falls onto the ground and reconstitutes itself.

There they talk with one of the thieves by the name of Vanni Fucci, a black Guelph from Pistoia near Florence who had stolen holy objects from a chapel and betrayed an accomplice for execution in his place. The snakes then take charge of him, winding their coils around his neck and body, and putting him into a reptile straightjacket.

Dante and Virgil move on and meet a centaur.

The artists

William Blake (1757–1827) was a British visionary painter and illustrator whose last and incomplete work was an illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy for the painter John Linnell. Most of his works shown in this series were created for that, although he did draw and paint scenes during his earlier career. I have a major series on his work here.

Gustave Doré (1832–1883) was the leading French illustrator of the nineteenth century, whose paintings are still relatively unknown. Early in his career, he produced a complete set of seventy illustrations for translations of the Inferno, first published in 1857 and still being used. These were followed in 1867 by more illustrations for Purgatorio and Paradiso. This article looks at his paintings.

John Flaxman (1755–1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman who occasionally painted too. When he was in Rome between 1787-91, he produced drawings for book illustrations, including a set of 111 for an edition of The Divine Comedy. In 1810, he was appointed the Professor of Sculpture to the Royal Academy in London, and in 1817 made drawings to illustrate Hesiod, which were engraved by William Blake.

Joseph Anton Koch (1768-1839) was an Austrian landscape painter, who worked mainly in Neoclassical style. During his second stay in Rome, he was commissioned to paint frescos in the Villa Massimi on the walls of the Dante Room there, which remain one of the most florid visual accounts of Dante’s Inferno. He completed those between 1824-29. He also appears to have drawn a set of illustrations for Dante’s Inferno in about 1808.

Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781-1835) was a Roman illustrator and engraver who provided illustrations for a great many books, and specialised in the city of Rome. He made 145 prints to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy, most probably in the early nineteenth century.

Jan van der Straet, also commonly known by his Italianised name of Giovanni Stradano (1523-1605), was a painter who started his career in Bruges and Antwerp in Belgium, but moved to Florence in 1550, where he worked for the remainder of his life. Mannerist in style, he worked with printmakers in Antwerp to produce collections of prints, including an extensive set for The Divine Comedy.

References

Wikipedia
Danteworlds

Robin Kirkpatrick (trans) (2012) Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, Penguin Classics. ISBN 978 0 141 19749 4.
Richard Lansing (ed) (2000) The Dante Encyclopedia, Routledge. ISBN 978 0 415 87611 7.
Guy P Raffa (2009) The Complete Danteworlds, A Reader’s Guide to the Divine Comedy, Chicago UP. ISBN 978 0 2267 0270 4.
Prue Shaw (2014) Reading Dante, From Here to Eternity, Liveright. ISBN 978 1 63149 006 4.