Part 7
A nobleman of Rimini, noted for his
generosity, who lived in the first half
of the thirteenth century.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned.
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The father of Saint Dominic, his name
interpreted to mean ‘favoured by
fortune’.
Paradiso Canto XII:37-105. He is mentioned.
)HOWUH $OHVVDQGUR 1RYHOOR %LVKRS
RI
)HUGLQDQG,9.LQJRI&DVWLOH
Ferdinand IV King of Castile and
Leon (1295-1312) noted for his
1172
luxurious style of living at the expense of his kingdom.
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
)LHVFKL2WWREXRQRGH¶VHH Adrian V
)LHVFKL$ODJLDGH¶
See Alagia de’ Fieschi Malaspina.
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See
Bonifazio, Archbishop of
Ravenna.
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An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
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Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. Feuded with the Monaldi.
1173
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
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)RFDFFLDVHH &DQFHOOLHUL
)ROFRRU)ROTXHW
Folco of Marseilles (fl 1180-1195), or
Folcetto, a troubadour, a Genoese by
origin, born at Marseilles shortly
before 1160. A famous lover he
became a Cistercian monk and was
made Bishop of Toulouse in 1205. He
was a friend of Saint Dominic, and persecuted the Albigensian heretics till
his death in 1231. (Marseilles is on the
same meridian as Bougia in Algeria.
At Gibraltar where the Mediterranean
1174
runs out of the Atlantic the sun is on the horizon when it is noon in the
Levant, so the Mediterranean makes
zenith at its eastern end of what was
horizon at its western end. i.e. it
extends over a quadrant.)
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. He is in the third sphere, of Venus.
)RUHVHVHH 'RQDWL
)UDQFHVFDGD5LPLQL
She loved Paolo Malatesta, Il Bello, and was unfaithful to her husband
the
son
of
Malatesta da Verucchio, Lord of Rimini. Gianciotto, brave but possibly
deformed, stabbed to death the
unfaithful Francesca, along with,
Paolo about 1285. (He was still alive
in 1300, the date of the vision, so that
Caïna, the first ring of the ninth circle,
1175
reserved for murderers of their kin, is
‘waiting’ for him according to
Francesca.) According to legend she
thought that Paolo was her intended
husband when he stood proxy for his
brother in the marriage. She was born
in Ravenna, the daughter of
Guido Vecchio da Polenta, and aunt of Guido Novello at whose court in
Ravenna Dante found his last refuge.
(See Rossetti's watercolour Paolo and
Francesca Da Rimini – Tate Gallery,
London, and Blake’s engraving ‘The
Whirlwind of Lovers’, Plate 10 of his
illustrations to the Divine Comedy,
British Museum)
Inferno Canto V:70-142. She tells her story to Dante, in Limbo.
)UDQFLVRI$VVLVL6DLQW
Giovanni, later Francesco, of Assisi
(c1182-1226) the Founder of the Order
of Friars Minor or Franciscans.
1176
(Brown or Grey habit, with three knots in the girdle representing the vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience.) The
son of a wool and cloth merchant.
Assisi is between the Rivers Tupino
and Chiascio rising in the mountains
near Gubbio where St Ubaldo chose a
hermitage (Bishop of Gubbio 1160).
$VFHVL an old form of Assisi may be
translated ‘I have ascended’. Francis
was often compared to the rising Sun.
He renounced his possessions before
the Bishop, of Assisi in the presence of
his father Pietra Bernadone. The
Franciscan Rule was approved by
Pope Innocent III in 1210 and confirmed by Honorius III in 1223. In 1219 he went to the East to try and
convert the Sultan. Christ gave him the
third confirmation of his work in 1224
on the ‘hard rock’ of La Verna where
he received the stigmata, the five
wounds of the Passion. He died at
1177
Assisi on October 4th 1226 stretched naked on the ground in the arms of
‘his dearest lady’ Poverty. The
Seraphim are associated with Love and
therefore Francis is the Seraphical
Saint. Saint Dominic was associated
with the Cherubim and Wisdom. The
popular stories of him are the )LRUHWWL.
Paradiso Canto XI:1-42. Aquinas
speaks of him.
Inferno Canto XXVII:58-136. The Cordeliers, from the wearing of a
black habit with a cord tired round it,
was a name for the Order of Saint
Francis.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXII:1-99. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. He is seated below John the Baptist in Heaven.
1178
An illuminator and painter of
miniatures. Vasari says he was at
Rome in 1295, to illuminate
manuscripts, in the Vatican Library,
for Pope Boniface VIII, and the work was shared with Oderisi of Gubbio.
Purgatorio Canto XI:73-117. He is among the proud.
)UHGHULFN,%DUEDURVVD(PSHURU
Emperor (1152-1190). Initial leader of
the Third Crusade (1189-1192). He
won a brilliant victory at Iconium, but
drowned in the River Saleph, on 10th
June 1190. He had campaigned in Italy
(1154-55, 1158-62, 1163-64, 1166-68,
1174-78 and 1184-86: Milan was
razed in 1162, and rebuilt in 1169)
achieving a series of shifting alliances,
and several peace treaties. During the
third campaign, the Veronese league
of cities was formed, which later
1179
joined with the Lombard league, but eventually agreed peace with
Frederick in 1183 (The Peace of
Constance). He took the cross in 1188,
the year of the Diet of Worms.
Purgatorio Canto XVIII:112-145. He
is mentioned.
)UHGHULFN,,(PSHURU
Frederick (1194-1250), ‘6WXSRU
0XQGL’, the wonder of the world,
became King of Sicily and Naples in
1197 and Emperor in 1212. He was
crowned Emperor in Rome in 1220.
He agreed to lead a crusade in 1227
but was turned back by an epidemic,
and as a result was excommunicated
by Pope Gregory IX despite
continuing with the crusade in 1228-9.
He was granted absolution in 1230, but
excommunicated again in 1239 and
declared a heretic at the First Council
of Lyon and deposed. He struggled
1180
against Henry VII of Germany, and died in Apulia in 1250. He was by
reputation an Epicurean, and a
sensualist.
Inferno Canto X:94-136. He is among the heretics in the Sixth
Circle.
Pier delle Vigne was his minister.
Inferno Canto XXII:76-96. Enzio was his natural son.
Inferno Canto XXIII:58-81. He punished malefactors by coating them
with lead and roasting them over a
fire.
Purgatorio Canto XVI:97-145. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto III:97-130. The son of
Constance and Henry VI, and called the ‘third stormwind of Swabia’.
1181
King of Sicily(1296-1337). and
therefore alive at the time of the
Vision.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. The son of Peter (Pere) III of Aragon, and
Constanza, daughter of Manfred.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. Dante regards him as inferior to his father.
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
Paradiso Canto XX:1-72. He is a burden to Sicily.
)XFFL9DQQL
The illegitimate son of a noble family,
and a turbulent Black Guelph from
Pistoia who, in 1293, together with
two accomplices, stole the treasure of
San Jacopo from the church of San
Zeno. Rampiono de’ Foresi was held
in prison for the crime, while the
culprits went undetected for a year.
1182
Inferno Canto XXIV:97-129. He is in the eighth circle.
*DEULHOWKH$UFKDQJHO
The Archangel who made the
Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. See Luke i.
Purgatorio Canto X:1-45. The Annunciation is sculpted on the Frieze,
indicating humility that corrects pride.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He is shown with human form though beyond the
human.
Paradiso Canto XIV:1-66. The Annunciation, at Nazareth, is
mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXIII:88-139. Circles the Virgin in the Stellar Heaven.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:85-114. Shows his adoration for the Virgin, he the height of celestial chivalry.
1183
*DLDVHH &DPLQR
*DOHQ
The Roman experimental physician
and the main authority on medicine
and physiology throughout the Middle
Ages. He lived c.130-200 AD. His
doctrines concerned ‘QDWXUDO’, ‘YLWDO’
and ‘DQLPDl’ spirits. Blood charged
with ‘QDWXUDO’ spirits in the liver,
meets air charged with ‘SQHXPD’, the
‘ZRUOG VSLULW’ in the lungs, creating
‘YLWDO’ spirits in the blood of the
arteries, which in the brain become
‘DQLPDO’ spirits. He identified muscle
and bones as levers. He examined the
pituitary and thyroid glands, but
incorrectly identified their purpose. He
sectioned the ocular nerves and spinal
cord and roughly localised several
1184
inveterate teleologist, and thus became
the ELEOH for the Medieval period.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the group of wise men in
Limbo.
*DOHRWWR
Gallehaut was the go-between for
Lancelot and Guenever, who urged the queen to give Lancelot the first kiss
that initiated their love. His name was
therefore synonymous with ‘SDQGDU’.
The story is found in the old French
romance of /DQFHORWGX/DF.
Inferno Canto V:70-142. His role of SDQGDU is mentioned by Francesca.
*DOLJDL*DOLJDLRGH¶
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
1185
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
*DQHOORQ*DQHORQ
Inferno Canto XXXI:1-45 Roland
(Orlando) Charlemagne’s nephew, and the hero of the battle of Roncesvalles,
went down to defeat with his Franks,
fighting against the Saracens, while
attempting to hold the valley in
778AD. He blew his horn in
desperation, to alert his uncle eight
miles away, but Charlemagne was
misled by the advice of Ganelon, and
did not provide aid. The epic is told in
the Old French &KDQVRQ GH 5RODQG,
the ‘Song of Roland’, where the
intensity of Roland’s blast on the horn
1186
shattered it. The defeat allowed Arab incursions into Narbonne in 793.
Inferno Canto XXXII:70-123. He is in the Ninth Circle.
*DQ\PHGH
The son of Tros, and brother of Ilus
and Assaracus, who was loved by
Jupiter because of his great beauty,
and snatched up to the Heavens, by
Jupiter disguised as an eagle, where he
became Jupiter’s cupbearer. Tros was
an ancestor of Aeneas, so linking to Ganymede to Rome. See Ovid’s
Metamoprhoses X 155, X1 756.
Purgatorio Canto IX:1-33. He is mentioned.
*HQWXFFD0RUOD
The beautiful wife of Cosciorino
Fondora of Lucca. She was a friend to
Dante between 1314 and 1316, when
he was at Lucca. She was still
1187
unmarried in 1300 (and did not wear the EHQGD, or headdress reserved for
married women, and, when white, for
widows.)
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:34-99. She is mentioned as a future friend of Dante.
*HU\RQ
The type of fraud or malice, as the
is
of brutishness and
bestiality. He is compounded of the
mythical (three-bodied in the myth,
but not here) and monstrous King of
Spain whom Hercules killed for the sake of his herd of cattle (Virgil’s
Aeneid VIII 202, and Ovid’s
Metamorphoses IX 184), and the
creatures of the bottomless pit in
Revelations ix.
Inferno Canto XVI:88-136. He appears to the poets from below the seventh
circle.
1188
Inferno Canto XVII:79-136. He carries them down to the eighth circle on his
back.
Purgatorio Canto XXVII:1-45. Virgil reminds Dante of him.
*KHUDUGHVFD&RXQW8JROLQR
A leading Guelph of Pisa. He led one
party
while
his
grandson
Nino de’ Visconti led the other. In 1288
Ugolino
intrigued
with
the
Archbishop, the nephew of Cardinal
Ottaviano degh Ubaldini, and leader of the Ghibellines in Pisa, who was
supported by the Lanfranchi,
Sismondi, Gualandi and other families, and Nino was expelled. The
Archbishop however betrayed him and
had Ugolino and four of his sons and
grandsons (his sons were *DGGR, and
8JXFFLRQH, his grandsons 1LQR, called
%ULJDWD, and Anselmuccio or ‘little
1189
$QVHOP’) imprisoned in the Torre dei Gualandi in July 1288. When
Guido da Montefeltro took command of the Pisan forces, in March 1289, the
keys were thrown into the river Arno
and the prisoners left to starve to
death, even a priest being denied them.
The tower was known afterwards as
the 7RUUH GHOOD )DPH, the Tower of
Famine. Ugolino had previously
acquired a reputation by the surrender
of certain castles to the Florentine and
Lucchese after the defeat of the Pisans
by the Genoese at Meloria in 1284.
(The islands of Caprara and Gorgona
mentioned, north-west of Elba, and
south-west of Livorno respectively,
were held by Pisa at the time.)
Inferno Canto XXXIII:1-90. He is in the Ninth Circle.
*KHUDUGRGD&DPLQR
1190
Benicasa da Laterina, judge to the Podestà of Siena condemned a relative
of Ghin di Tacco, a highwayman, to
death, and Ghino took his revenge by
murdering him while he was sitting as
a magistrate in Rome.
Purgatorio Canto VI:1-24. He is mentioned.
*KLVROD GD )RQWDQD QpH GH¶
&DFFLDQLPLFR
Inferno Canto XVIII:40-66. Her father Alberto was head of the Bolognese
Guelphs. Her brother Venedico was a leading Guelph, exiled in 1289, and a
follower of Marquis Obizzo II d’Este
of Ferrara. He assisted the Marquis in
her seduction. She later married
Niccolò de Fontana of Ferrara, in
1270.
1191
Inferno Canto XVII:31-78. The Florentine Gianfigliazzi family
belonged to the Black Guelphs. Their
arms were ‘a lion azure on field or’.
*LGHRQ
The son of Joash, instructed by the
angel to save Israel from the
Midianites. He selected men to fight
based on how they drank water at the
pool of Harod: ‘as a dog lappeth’.
Dante regards the example of their
greed as a sin, since it later leads Israel
astray. See Judges vii 1-7 and 24-33.
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:100-154. The incident is mentioned.
*LRWWR
Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337)
painter, sculptor and architect. Found
by Cimabue, according to the legend, as a shepherd boy, drawing on stones.
1192
He liberated Florentine painting from Byzantine stasis. Both painters are said
to have been friends of Dante’s, and
the Bargello portrait of Dante is
attributed to Giotto.
Purgatorio Canto XI:73-117. He
surpassed his master Cimabue.
*LRYDQQD
PRWKHU
RI
6DLQW
Giovanna Guzman, mother of
Dominic, whose name was interpreted
to mean ‘grace of the Lord’, who
dreamed she was about to give birth to
a whelp with a blazing brand in its
mouth which would light the world.
Paradiso Canto XII:37-105. She is mentioned.
1193
0RQWHIHOWUR
Her family name is not known.
Purgatorio Canto V:85-129. She is mentioned by Buonconte.
*LRYDQQD9LVFRQWLGD&DPLQR
The daughter of Nino de’ Visconti,
and Beatrice d’Este. She married
Purgatorio Canto VIII:46-84. She is mentioned.
*LUDXWGH%RUQHLO
Giraut de Bornelh of Limoges (c1170-
c1220), the Provençal poet,‘master of
the troubadours’ as his contemporaries
called him.
Purgatorio Canto XXVI:112-148. He
is alluded to.
1194
An ancient Florentine family.
Mentioned.
*LXRFKL
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
*ODXFXV
A fisherman of Anthedon in Boeotia,
who was changed into a sea-god after
eating magic grass. He fell in love
with Scylla, and was loved by Circe.
See Ovid’s Metamorphoses VII 233.
Paradiso Canto I:37-72. He is mentioned.
*RGIUH\RI%RXLOORQ
Duke of Lorraine. A descendant of
Charlemagne who led the First
1195
Crusade which captured Jerusalem in 1099. (Friday July 15th: He was the
first Crusader to drop down from the
wall into the city, close by Herod’s
Gate) The capture was followed by
indiscriminate massacre of the
inhabitants, ‘the knights riding up their
knees in blood, in the Haram
enclosure, where the Mahomedans
sought refuge’. He ruled there, as king,
until his death of illness the following
year, but refused the royal crown and
title. He was buried in the Holy
Sepulchre where his tomb (and sword)
survived until the great fire of 1808.
Despite the massacre, he was
remembered as the best and wisest of
the Christian leaders.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He is in the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
1196
A Sardinian friar, chancellor of Nino
Visconti of Pisa, judge of Gallura, one of the four jurisdictions of Sardinia
(Cagliari, Logodoro, Gallura, and
Arborea) which belonged at the time
to Pisa. He took bribes to release
prisoners etc. Visconti hanged him.
Inferno Canto XXII:76-96. He is in the eighth circle.
*UDIILDFDQHDGHPRQ
Inferno Canto XXI:97-139. A demon guarding the eighth circle, the fifth
chasm, of the barrators.
Inferno Canto XXII:31-75. He hauls
Ciampolo out of the boiling pitch.
*UDWLDQXV)UDQFLVFXV
Gratian (fl. c. 1150), and Italian
Benedictine monk, brought
ecclesiastical and civil law into
harmony with each other. His
1197
'HFUHWXP was the first systematic treatise on Canon Law.
Paradiso Canto X:100-129. He is in the fourth sphere of Prudence.
*UHFL
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
*UHJRU\WKH*UHDW6DLQWDQG3RSH
Pope Gregory I, the Great (?540-604),
the first monastic Pope, who called
himself 6HUYXV 6HUYRUXP 'HL, the
servant of God’s servants. He was the
founder of the worldly power of the
Papacy in Italy. He was one of the four
Latin (western) Fathers of the Church,
with Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome.
He established the form of the Roman
liturgy and its music (Gregorian
1198
Chant). He instituted the rule of celibacy for the clergy.
interceded through prayer to obtain the
deliverance of Trajan from Hell, because of this act of clemency and
justice to the widow, so that Trajan
might have a respite for repentance.
Paradiso Canto XX:73-148. The prayers were SUHGHVWLQHG to save
Trajan, since prayers for the truly
damned have no effect, according to
Aquinas and to Gregory himself.
Paradiso Canto XXVIII:94-139. He
gave a different account of the Angelic
Hierarchies to that of Dionysius the Areopagite.
*ULIIROLQRRI$UH]]R
He obtained money from Albero of Siena by pretending he could teach
him how to fly. On discovering the
deceit, Albero induced the Bishop of
1199
Siena to have Griffolino burned as an Alchemist.
Inferno Canto XXIX:73-99. He is in the tenth chasm.
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. He names the spirits for Dante.
*XDODQGL*KLEHOOLQHVRI3LVD
*XDOGUDGDGH¶5DYLJQDQL
The virtuous and lovely daughter of
Bellincion Berti was the ancestress of the Conti Guidi, the great feudal
nobles of the Casentino. She married
Guido Guerra IV at the instigation, it
was said, of Emperor Otto IV. The
Guido Guerra, one of many of that
name, mentioned here was the son of
her fourth son, Marcovaldo of
Dovadola.
Inferno Canto XVI:1-45. The mother of Guido Guerra.
1200
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
*XHQHYHU
The wife of King Arthur of Britain, who in the Arthurian Legends
conceived an illicit love for Sir
Lancelot, which led, fatally, to the dissolution of the Round Table and the
death of Arthur. See Malory’s Morte
D’Arthur.
Inferno Canto V:70-142. Reading about their love corrupts Paolo and
Paradiso Canto XVI:1-45. Her first words to Lancelot in public are
referred to.
1201
*XLGR, $OHVVDQGUR, and $JKLQROIR
the Conti Guidi of Romena, induced
Master Adam of Brescia to counterfeit the Florentine gold florin, stamped
with the figure of St John the Baptist.
He was brunt to death for the crime in
1281, on the Consuma, the pass that
leads out of the Casentino towards
Florence. The Conti Guidi escaped
punishment. Conte Giudo was dead by
1300, but the other two were still alive.
Fonte Branda, the spring, is not the
more famous one near Siena, but a
lesser one near the castle of Romena,
near where Adamo died.
Inferno Canto XXX:49-90. Adamo is in the tenth chasm.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. The family was descended from the
Ravignani through Bellincion Berti’s
daughter Gualdrada.
1202
The grandson of Gualdrada, a leading Guelf in Tuscany from 1250 to 1266,
appointed Vicar of Tuscany by
Charles of Anjou. He died in 1272. He played a distinguished part at
Benevento in 1265, where Manfred
died, and before the disaster at
Montaperti in 1260, when the Guelfs
went down to defeat, he was one of the
nobles who had voted with
Tegghiaio Aldebrandi against the expedition, knowing the Sienese had
been reinforced with German
mercenaries.
Inferno Canto XVI:1-45. He is in the seventh circle for sodomy.
*XLGRRI5RPHQD
1203
The poet (c1235-1276), who was
valued highly by Dante and his
companions, as ‘their’ philosopher. He
was a member of the Ghibelline
Principi family of Bologna, and was
Podestà of Castefranco in 1270 and
exiled in 1274 with the Lambertazzi.
he began as an imitator of the later
Guittone d’Arezzo. His best work, including the canzone of the Gentle
Heart (‘$O FRU JHQWLO ULSDUD VHPSUH
$PRUH: Love always shelters in the
gentle heart, as birds do in the green
shade of the trees. No love in nature
before the gentle heart, nor the gentle
heart before love.’), inspired the
Florentine School of the GROFH VWLO
QXRYR.
Purgatorio Canto XI:73-117. Dante expresses the view that he has been
surpassed, by the poetic school of
Guido Cavalcanti. (Who wrote the 1204
famous EDOODWHWWD: ‘Because I do not hope to turn again’, ‘3HUFK¶L¶QRVSHUR
GLWRUQDUJLDPPDL¶)
Purgatorio Canto XXVI:67-111. He is among the lustful.
*XLVFDUG5REHUW
The founder (d 1085) of the Norman
dynasty in southern Italy and Sicily.
The Son of Tancred de Hauteville.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:1-21. He waged war in Sicily and Southern Italy from
1059 to 1080, against the Greeks and
Saracens. He won the title Duke of
Apulia from Pope Nicholas II in 1059,
and died in 1085 having rescued
Gregory VII, and sacked Rome in the
previous year.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He is in the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
1205
Jacopo da Lentino ( LO 1RWDLR, the Notary), Guittone del Viva known as
Fra Guittone, of Arezzo (1230-1294:
one of the )UDWL *DXGHQWL) in his first
poetic period, and Bonagiunta were prominent members of the Sicilian
school of Poetry, continued in Central
Italy, based on Provençal traditions.
Their style lacked the spontaneity and
sweetness of the GROFH VWLO QXRYR
developed by Guido Guinicelli of Bologna, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante.
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:34-99. He is mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto XXVI:112-148.
Dante considers him to have been
over-praised, and now superseded.
+DPDQ
Ahasuerus, the Persian King, enriched Haman, until he was accused by Esther
of intending to take the life of
1206
Mordecai. Haman was executed in Mordecai’s place. See Esther iii-viii.
Purgatorio Canto XVII:1-39. He is mentioned.
+DQQLEDO
Inferno Canto XXXI:97-145. The eldest son of Hamilcar, who became
the commander-in-chief of the
Carthaginian fight against Rome in the
Punic wars. He crossed the Pyrenees
and defeated the Romans at Cannae in
216 BC, but was defeated in turn by
Scipio at Zama in 202BC. He ultimately committed suicide in 183
BC.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
+DNRQ9.LQJRI1RUZD\
King of Norway (1299-1319)
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
1207
Virgil’s Aeneid III 209-267 describes
how the Harpies, monstrous birds with
the faces of girls, fouled the Trojans
banquet on the Strophades Islands
(The clashing islands) in the Ionian
Sea, and drove off Aeneas and his
companions. Celaeno (LQIHOL[ YDWHV),
the Harpies’s leader, prophesies that
the Trojans will reach Italy but only
after being reduced to starvation.
Inferno Canto XIII:1-30. They nest in the wood of suicides.
Inferno Canto XIII:79-108. They feed on the leaves of the trees, giving pain
to the spirits imprisoned in them.
+HFWRU
The Trojan prince, son of Priam and
Hecabe (Hecuba), a hero of the Iliad, who was killed by Achilles in revenge for the death of Patroclus.
1208
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. He is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. His grave is mentioned in the summary of Imperial
history.
+HFXED
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. The wife of
Priam King of Troy. At the fall of Troy she witnessed the death of her
daughter Polyxena, sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, and found the body of her son Polydorus, done to death by
Polymestor, her son-in-law. She went mad and became a dog, Maera,
barking on the shore. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses XIII 423 et seq.
+HOHQRI7UR\
The wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta,
daughter of Zeus by Lede. Her
abduction by Paris initiated the Trojan 1209
War. She spent nineteen years in Troy and, after the ten-year war and the
city’s destruction, she went to Egypt
with Menelaus. ( according to Homer,
see the Iliad XXIV and Odyssey IV)
Inferno Canto V:52-72. She is a carnal sinner in Limbo.
+HOLFHVHH &DOOLVWR
+HOLRGRUXV
The treasurer of King Seleucus, who
went to the Temple to remove its
treasure, and was met by a rider on a
horse, which struck at him with its
hooves. See Second Maccabees iii 25.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
+HOLRV
The Sun-god, the son of Euryphessa or
Theia, and the Titan Hyperion.
Identical for Dante with Apollo-Christ.
1210
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. The Sun.
+HQU\9,(PSHURU
Paradiso Canto III:97-130. The son of
Frederick Barbarossa. He married
Constance, the daughter of Roger II in 1186 and inherited the Norman
kingdom in 1194. He was Emperor
from 1190 to 1197, and crowned, by
Pope Celestine in 1191, during his first Italian campaign. He united Germany
and Sicily after his second Italian
campaign in 1194-5, ‘XQLR UHJQL DG
LPSHULXP¶ but died at the age of 32.
Constance assumed the regency for
Frederick II, their son.
Paradiso Canto XVII:1-99. Supported in his Italian expedition, but
afterwards secretly opposed by
1211
Henry of Luxembourg, the Emperor
Henry VII (1308-1313). Of
insignificant wealth and background
he hoped to establish his prestige by
his coronation in Rome (1312), and
revival of the Imperial claims south of
the Alps. Pope Clement V attempted to use him to further his own ambitions.
Henry was in Italy between 1310 and
1313, and was hailed by Dante as the
Liberator. He reached Milan in
December 1310, but failed as honest
broker to reconcile the Guelph and
Ghibelline factions. He was driven
into leadership of the Ghibelline party
and aligned himself with Federico III
of Sicily. Clement then swung back to
the Guelphs, and repudiated the
alliance. Henry died at Buonconvento
of disease in 1313, as he was marching
on Florence and planning a campaign
1212
against Naples, ending the dreams of Dante and the Florentine exiles.
Paradiso Canto XXX:97-148. A throne is reserved for him in Heaven.
+HQU\,,RI(QJODQG
Henry II (reigned 1154-89) held
England, Normandy, Brittany, Anjou,
Maine, Touraine, and Aquitaine.
Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of
Canterbury, was murdered in 1170,
with Henry’s tacit consent, and Henry
did penance at the grave in 1174. He
oversaw the development of the royal
courts and the common law, and
initiated the conquest of Ireland. He
refused to grant the sovereignty of
England or Normandy to his son, and
the resulting strife lasted until the
‘Young King’s’, Henry Plantagenet’s,
death in 1183. (See Ezra Pound’s
translation of the lament ‘Planh for the
Young English King’ in Personae)
1213
Inferno Canto XXVIII:112-142. He is mentioned, in connection with
Bertrand de Born, who fomented the strife with his son.
+HQU\,,,RI(QJODQG
King of England (1226-1272). The
pious father of the warlike Edward I
(1272-1307). His wife Eleanor of Provence
was
a
daughter
of
Raymond Berenger and sister of
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is one of the negligent rulers.
+HQU\,.LQJRI1DYDUUH
Henry the Fat (1270-1274), brother of
Thibaut II. His daughter Joan married
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is one of the negligent rulers
1214
&\SUXV
King of Cyprus (died 1324), whose
bad rule Dante cites as a warning to
Joanna wife of Philip the Fair,
concerning her separate kingdom of
Navarre.
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
+HQU\µ7KH<RXQJ.LQJ¶
Prince Henry Plantagenet, the elder
brother to Richard Coeur de Lion, and
named the ‘Young King’, the son of
Henry II of England, and twice crowned in his father’s lifetime. Henry
II refused to grant the sovereignty of
England or Normandy to his son, and
the resulting strife lasted until the
Young King’s death in 1183. (See
Ezra Pound’s translation of the lament
‘Planh for the Young English King’ in
Personae)
1215
Inferno Canto XXVIII:112-142. He is mentioned, in connection with
Bertrand de Born, who fomented the strife.
+HQU\VRQRI5LFKDUGRI&RUQZDOO
+HUDFOLWXV
The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher,
an Ephesian nobleman who flourished
about the 69th Olympiad 504-501BC,
according to Diogenes. His gnomic and pithy style contains ideas of the
flux of existence, the instability of
sensation and experience. His key
concept is of unity in diversity and
diversity in unity, a theme that Dante
often plays with. The One exists as a
tension of opposites, in the Many,
Identity in Difference.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the philosophers in Limbo.
1216
The mythical Greek hero of Thebes,
son of Jupiter, and Alcmena. He was
driven to perform Twelve Labours, at
Juno’s instigation. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses IX et al. Called
Alcides, as a descendant of Alceus,
through his mother Amphitryon.
Inferno Canto XXV:1-33. He stole the cattle of King Geryon (the Tenth Labour), and battered Cacus to death for stealing some of them in turn.
Inferno Canto XXVI:85-142. His
pillars, at the entrance to the
Mediterranean, were, in ancient times,
the limits of the western world
(namely Mount Abyla in North Africa,
near Ceuta, and Mount Calpe,
Gibraltar, well south-east of Seville).
Inferno Canto XXXI:97-145. He lifted the Giant Antaeus from the ground, 1217
Metamorphoses IX 184.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. He loved
Iole, daughter of Eurytus, King of Oechalia. He had captured her. The
love caused the jealousy of Deianira,
his wife, who sent him, unknowingly,
the fatal shirt of Nessus the Centaur, that caused his death. Nessus had been
killed by Hercules after trying to carry
off and rape Deianira, and steeped the
shirt in his blood, containing the
poison of the Hydra from the wound
caused by Hercules’s poisoned arrow,
telling Deianira the shirt was a love
charm to win back Hercules’s
affections. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses
IX 13 et seq.
+H]HNLDK
The King of Judah, whose life was
extended by the Lord, for the sake of
his past sincerity and virtue. The word
1218
of God came to him through the mouth and actions of Isaiah. See Second Kings xx.
Paradiso Canto XX:1-72. He is in the sixth sphere of Jupiter. Aquinas taught that God’s decrees are consistent with
prayer, because prayer does not alter
the Divine plan, but fulfils what God
ordained to be fulfilled by prayer.
+LSSRFUDWHV
The Greek physician of Cos, c460-360
BC, and founder of the medical school
there. He initiated an experimental
method which discarded teleology. He
identified the healing properties of
plants. He articulated the principle of
YLV PHGLFDWUL[ QDWXUDH, that nature is
the best healer, and that the wise
physician only tries to remove the
obstacles in her path.
1219
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the group of wise men in
Limbo.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. St Luke in the Divine Pageant is of his school, but a VSLULWXDO physician.
+LSSRO\WXV
The son of Theseus, and the Amazon Hippolyte, whom Phaedra
his
stepmother fell in love with. Repulsed,
she lied about the situation and
accused him to his father, indirectly
bringing him to his death.
See Ovid’s Metamorphoses XV 492 et
seq.
Paradiso Canto XVII:1-99. A victim of lies.
+RORIHUQHV
One of Nebuchadnezzar’s captains,
who besieged Bethulia. Judith, the Jewish widow, gained access to his
1220
tent and cut off his head, which was displayed on the walls of Jerusalem, at
which the Assyrians fled, pursued by
the Jews. See Judith x-xiv.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. He is depicted on the roadway.
+RPHU
The author of the Iliad and the
Odyssey, the great epic poems of
Ancient Greece, telling the story of the
Trojan War and Ulysses’s
(Odysseus’s) wanderings and return.
Inferno Canto IV:64-105. He leads the great Classical poets in Limbo.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. He is mentioned.
+RQRULXV,,,3RSH
Paradiso Canto XI:43-117. He re-confirmed the Franciscan Order in
1223.
1221
sanctioned the Dominican Order in
1216.
+RUDFH)ODFFXV
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the Roman
poet, 65-8BC, who wrote odes and
epodes in various metres derived from
the Greek poets; satires; and epistles.
He was on the losing side at Philippi
but won the patronage of Maecenas
from whom he received his beloved
Sabine farm. He is the type of a
moralist, rather than satirist, for Dante.
Inferno Canto IV:64-105. He is among the great poets in Limbo.
+XJKRI6W9LFWRU
Hugo (c1097-1141), one of the great
mystics of the Abbey of Saint Victor at
Paris. It was the centre of the
conservative learning as opposed to
the scholastic Aristotelian learning of
1222
the progressives. He was the master of
and
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
+\SHULRQ
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. The Titan of the Sun, father of Helios.
+\SVLS\OH
Inferno Canto XVIII:67-99. The daughter of King Thoas of Lemnos,
who saved him when the women of the
island killed their menfolk. She was
loved and abandoned by Jason. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses XIII 399.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. She is in Limbo. One of the people celebrated
by Statius in his epic poetry. She was sold into slavery by the women of
Lemnos, and acted as nurse to
Lycurgus of Nemea’s son Archemorus 1223
(Opheltes). She showed the Seven Champions against Thebes the pool of
Langia, and in her absence a serpent
killed the child. Lycurgus would have
killed her, but she was rescued by her
sons.
Purgatorio Canto XXVI:67-111. Her children’s joy at seeing her again is
mentioned. See Statius’s Thebaid iv
and v.
,DUEDV
Purgatorio Canto XXXI:70-90. The Libyan king, one of Dido’s suitors, hence Iarbas’s land is Libya, and the
winds that blow from there are the
southerly winds off the African Coast.
,FDUXV
Inferno Canto XVII:79-136. The son of Daedalus, who made waxen wings in order for them to escape from Crete.
Flying too near the sun Icarus’s wings
1224
melted and he fell into the sea. He was buried on the island of Icaria, and the
Icarian Sea and the island, were named
after him. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses
VIII 195.
,OOXPLQDWR)ULDU
Bishop of Assisi in 1282. He had
joined the Order in 1210 and
accompanied Francis in his mission to the Soldan.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
,PSRUWXQL
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
,QIDQJDWR
An ancient Florentine family. See the
1225
Mentioned.
,QQRFHQW,,,3RSH
Pope from 1198 to 1216, he called
himself Christ’s Vicar, from whom
worldly rulers received their kingdoms
as fiefs. He operated an interventionist
policy. Power was centralised through
the Papal legates. He became the
guardian of Frederick II
after
Constance’s death. After the murder of the Papal legate Peter of Castelnau, he
initiated the vicious Albigensian
Crusade against Provençal heretics.
confirmed the Franciscan Order in
1210.
,QR
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. Juno was angered because of Jupiter’s adultery with Semele, whom she punished, and 1226
took vengeance on the house of
Cadmus of Thebes, her father. She pursued Ino, Semele’s sister, by
driving her husband Athamas mad. He killed their son Learchus, and drove Ino to throw herself over a cliff, with
their son Melicertes. Ino and Melicertes became sea-gods, namely
Leucothea, the White Goddess, and
Palaemon. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses
III 261 and IV 519.
,QWHUPLQHL$OHVVLRGHJOL
A member of a prominent family of
Luccan Whites, alive in the year 1295.
Inferno Canto XVIII:100-136. He is in Hell for flattery.
,ROH
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. Iole, daughter of Eurytus, King of Oechalia,
was loved by Hercules who had captured her. The love caused the
1227
jealousy of Deianira, his wife, who sent him, unknowingly, the fatal shirt
of Nessus the Centaur, that caused his death. Nessus had been killed by
Hercules after trying to carry off and
rape Deianira, and steeped the shirt in
his blood, containing the poison of the
Hydra from the wound caused by
Hercules’s poisoned arrow, telling
Deianira the shirt was a love charm to
win back Hercules’s affections. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses IX 13 et seq.
,SKLJHQLD
The daughter of Agamemnon King of Mycenae, and Clytemnestra, and the
sister of Electra and Orestes. She was sacrificed, at Aulis, by her father, to
gain favourable winds, for the Greek
expedition to Troy. Diana substituted a hind for her, and carried her to Tauris,
as her priestess. See Ovid’s
1228
Metamorphoses XII 28 and 184, and Aeschylus’s Oresteian Trilogy.
Paradiso Canto V:1-84. She is mentioned, as the victim of her
father’s rash vow.
,ULV
The goddess of the rainbow, the
daughter of Thaumas and Electra,
Juno’s messenger. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses IV 480 etc.
Purgatorio Canto XXI:34-75. She is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XII:1-36. The phenomenon of the double rainbow is
mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXXIII:49-145. The double rainbow is again used.
,VDLDK
The prophet (one of the four great
prophets of the Old Testament with
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel).
1229
Paradiso Canto XXV:64-96. Dante refers to Isaiah lxi 7,10 where the
prophecy that the redeemed shall
possess double things implies joy of
the body as well as joy of the soul.
,VLGRUHRI6HYLOOH6DLQW
Isidore (c560-636) is the author of the
&\FORSDHGLD, the main Medieval
Encylopedia.
Paradiso Canto X:130-148. He is in the fourth sphere of Prudence.
,VPHQH
The daughter of Oedipus, by Jocasta,
and sister of Eteocles and Polynices.
See Sophocles’s Theban Trilogy.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. She is in Limbo. One of the people celebrated
by Statius in his epic poetry.
1230
The son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.
He is called Israel, after wresthng with
the Lord at Peniel where he saw God
‘face to face’, see the Bible Genesis
xxxii. His wife is Rachel. His brother
Esau, whom he followed from the womb, clutching Esau’s heel as a sign
that he would supplant him, sold Jacob
his birthright for ‘a mess of pottage’,
and Jacob by guile robbed Esau the
elder of his father Isaac’s blessing.
Jacob is the type of the settler, Esau of
the hunter. See Genesis xxv and xxvii.
Their rivalry was used as an analogy
for Church and Synagogue.
Inferno Canto IV:1-63. Christ takes his spirit from Limbo into Paradise.
Paradiso Canto VIII:85-148. The brothers as contrasting types.
Paradiso Canto XXII:1-99. Jacob’s vision of the ladder is echoed by
1231
Dante’s vision. See Genesis xxviii 11-12.
-DPHV6DLQW
The disciple of Christ. James the
Greater, son of Zebedee, a fisherman
of Galilee, and the brother of
John the Evangelist. He was tried in Jerusalem in 44 AD by Herod Agrippa
and executed. His supposed tomb at
Santiago de Compostella in Galicia,
discovered in the 9th century, became
a place of worship, by the 11th
century, next in importance to
Jerusalem and Rome, and he became
the patron saint of Spain.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. He
was present at the Transfiguration, see
Matthew xviii 1-8 when Christ shone like the sun in white raiment, and
Moses and Elias appeared talking with 1232
him, and after they were overcome Christ said ‘Arise, and be not afraid’.
Christ is the apple-tree, in accord with
the Song of Solomon ii 3, ‘As the
apple tree among the trees of the
wood, so is my beloved among the
sons.’
Paradiso Canto XXV:1-63. He appears to Dante in the Stellar Heaven. Dante
ascribes to him the authorship of the
Epistle more usually attributed to the
apostle James the Less, the ‘brother of
the Lord’, which talks of God giving
liberally in i 5. He was of the group
with Peter and John whom Christ allowed nearer his presence, at the
Transfiguration, the raising of the
daughter of Jairus, and the Agony at
Gethsemane.
Paradiso Canto XXV:64-96. Dante refers to James i 12.
1233
King of the Balearic Islands (1276-
1311), brother of Peter III of Aragon and therefore uncle of Frederick II
King of Sicily.
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
-DPHV,,.LQJRI$UDJRQ
King of Sicily(1285-1296), and King
of Aragon(1291-1327) and therefore
alive at the time of the Vision. The
elder brother of Frederick II of Sicily.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. The son of Peter (Pere) III of Aragon, and
Constanza, daughter of Manfred.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. Dante regards him as inferior to his father.
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
1234
The son of Aeson, who was sent by his
uncle Pelias, from Iolchos in Thessaly,
to bring back the Golden Fleece from
Colchis. He sailed the Argo, the first
ship, with the Argonauts, the Greek
heroes. Medea the witch, the king’s daughter, fell in love with him, and
helped him, but he abandoned her for
Creusa. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses VII and VIII. He also abandoned
Hypsipyle, the daughter of King Thoas of Lemnos, whom she had saved when
the women of the island killed the
male inhabitants. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses XIII 399.
Inferno Canto XVIII:67-99. He is in the eighth circle, first chasm.
Paradiso Canto II:1-45. To wing the Golden Fleece he had to yoke the
bronze-footed fire-breathing bulls,
plough the field of Ares, and sow the
1235
Metamorphoses VII 1 et seq.
Paradiso Canto XXXIII:49-145. The voyage of the Argo is mentioned.
Dante dates it to 1200BC.
-DVRQWKHKLJKSULHVW
Inferno Canto XIX:31-87. The brother of Onias. He induced Antiochus IV
ruler of the Seleucid Empire (reigned
175-164 BC), whose self-conferred
title was ‘7KHRV (SLSKDQHV¶, ‘the
evident God’, and who was the brother
of Seleucus IV whom he succeeded, to
make him high-priest through bribery,
and allow the introduction of pagan
customs. See 2 Maccabees iv 7.
-HSKWKDK
Paradiso Canto V:1-84. The Gileadite who sacrificed his daughter, after
vowing to offer whatever came out of
his gates to meet him, when he
1236
returned from fighting the children of Ammon.
See Judges xi.
-HURPH6DLQW
Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius
(342-420), born at Stridon in Dalmatia.
With Ambrose,
and
Gregory he is one of the four Latin (western) Fathers of the Church. He
retired into the Syrian desert for four
years where he studied Hebrew. He
settled in Bethlehem in 386.His
translation of the Bible, the Vulgate,
into Latin was eventually declared the
official version, by the Council of
Trent.
Paradiso Canto XXIX:1-66. He spoke of the Angels being created long
before the rest of the universe, which
was contradicted by Aquinas.
1237
Of Fiore, in Calabria (c1130-1202), a
Cistercian monk, who founded a
monastery there. He claimed to have
the power to interpret the prophetic
books of the Bible with special
reference to the History of the Church.
A new dispensation (of the Holy
Spirit, after the Father’s, and the
Son’s), the third epoch, was at hand,
he said, of perfect love and spiritual
freedom. This was known as the
Eternal Gospel. The spiritual party
among the Franciscans seized on it,
and Fra Gherardo da Borgo San
Donnino (Gerardua) wrote an
Introduction to the Eternal Gospel
which was condemned as heresy in
1256. Bonaventura helped to suppress these Joachists.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
1238
-RFDVWD
The wife of Laius King of Thebes. The
mother, and, unintentionally, wife of
Oedipus, King of Thebes, who killed
his father. Her children Eteocles and
Polynices fought over the kingship in the War of the Seven against Thebes,
the subject of Statius’s Thebaid.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:55-93. She is mentioned.
-RKQWKH%DSWLVW6DLQW
The desert prophet who baptised
Christ. See the Gospel of St Luke 3.
Inferno Canto XIII:130-151. The Florentines adopted St John the Baptist
as their patron, displacing the Roman
Mars, whose statue had stood on the
site of the Baptistery. The statue was
then set up by the Arno. When
1239
Florence was destroyed by the Goths (Attila is confused with Totila the Goth leader), according to legend, the
statue fell into the Arno. Florence
could not be rebuilt, it was believed,
until the statue had been reinstated,
and it was rescued and set on a pillar
on the Ponte Vecchio when the city
was restored, according to legend
again, by Charlemagne. It remained
there till the great flood of 1333
carried away the bridge and statue.
The rejection of Mars was believed by
Florentines to be at the root of the
endless factional conflict in their city.
Inferno Canto XXX:49-90. Master
Adam of Brescia counterfeited the Florentine gold florin, stamped with
the figure of St John.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:115-154. He
ate locusts and honey in order to
survive in the desert. See Matthew iii
1240
4, Mark i 6. For his greatness see Matthew xi 11 and Luke vii 28.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He exists with God in the Empyrean.
Paradiso Canto XVI:1-45. Patron Saint of Florence.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:100-136. He
was figured on one side of the
Florentine gold florin. His beheading,
to fulfil Salome’s request to Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, son of
Herod the Great, (engineered by her
mother Herodias) is mentioned. See
Mark vi 21-28.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. His seat in Heaven and the ranks below him
indicate one half of the Rose, where
those who acquired faith after Christ’s
coming are seated. He corresponds to
the Virgin, beneath whom rank those with faith in the Christ to come.
1241
The disciple of Christ, son of Zebedee,
and brother of James. Presumed author
of the Fourth Gospel and, by tradition,
of the Apocalypse, and therefore
identified with John the Divine. His
emblem in art is an eagle. (See
Revelation iv 7. The four beasts are
identified with Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, the fourth beast being a
flying eagle.)
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. He
was present at the Transfiguration, see
Matthew xviii 1-8 when Christ shone like the sun in white raiment, and
Moses and Elias appeared talking with him, and after they were overcome
Christ said ‘Arise, and be not afraid’.
Christ is the apple-tree, in accord with
the Song of Solomon ii 3, ‘As the
apple tree among the trees of the
1242
wood, so is my beloved among the sons.’
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He exists with God in the Empyrean.
Paradiso Canto XXV:97-139. At the Last Supper he was ‘leaning on Jesus’s
bosom’. See John xiii 23. Christ, on the cross, committed Mary to his charge. See John xix 26-27.
-RKQWKH'LYLQH6DLQW
The author of the Book of Revelation.
Exiled by Domitian to the Aegean island of Patmos, and traditionally
identified with John the Evangelist, the Apostle.
Inferno Canto XIX:88-133. Dante refers to the vision of the Great
Whore, in Revelation xvii. The seven
heads are interpreted as the seven
virtues or sacraments, and the ten
heads as the Ten Commandments, kept
as long as the Popes were virtuous.
1243
Purgatorio CantoXXIX:82-105. Dante uses his imagery for the Divine
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant.
Paradiso Canto XXV:64-96. Dante refers to Revelation vii 9 where the
redeemed are robed in white, and
Dante links this to Isaiah’s statement
that they shall possess double things
implying joy of the body as well as joy
of the soul.
Revelation i 8. ‘I am Alpha and
Omega the beginning and the ending.’
Paradiso Canto XXXII:115-151. He
sits to the right of Peter in Heaven.
-RKQ;;,3RSH3HWHURI6SDLQ
Petrus Hispanus who succeeded
Adrian V for a few months, and was killed in 1277, by the fall of the Papal
Palace at Viterbo. He wrote a much-
1244
used treatise on Logic in twelve books.
The well-known 0HPRULD 7HFKQLFD
verses %DUEDUD &HODUHQW etc are
derived from it.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
-RKQ;;,,3RSH
John XXII, Pope (1316-1334) A native
of Cahors.
Paradiso Canto XXVII:1-66. Indirectly referred to.
-RVHSK
The son of Jacob, his best-beloved, the son of his old age. His brothers cast
him into a pit, stripping him of his coat
of many colours, and sold him to the
Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
There he became an overseer in
Potiphar’s household, whose wife tried
to seduce him. He refused, and she
perjured herself, blaming him, and
1245
causing him to be imprisoned. See Genesis xxix.
Potiphar’s wife is in the tenth chasm.
-RVKXD
The son of Nun, Moses’s minister, and successor, who crossed the Jordan and
led the Israelites in taking the
Promised Land.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. Rahab
aided his spies, allowing Jericho to be
taken.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He is in the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
-XED
King Juba of Numidia who sided with
Pompey against Caesar and was defeated. He was compelled to commit
suicide in 46BC.
1246
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
-XGDV,VFDULRW
The Disciple of Christ who betrayed
him for thirty pieces of silver. See
Matthew xxvi 14 and 47, Mark xiv 43,
Luke xxii 21, and xxii 47, John xviii 2.
He afterwards repented, threw the
thirty pieces of silver in front of the
chief priests and elders, and then hung
himself. See Matthew xxvii 3. The
thirty pieces of silver bought the
potter’s field, called the field of blood,
to bury strangers in. See Matthew
xxvii 7-10.
forfeited his place among the
Disciples, and was replaced by
Inferno Canto XXXI:97-145. The poets are set down in the Ninth Circle
that swallowed him.
1247
Inferno Canto XXXIV:55-69. He is tormented in one of Satan’s mouths.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. A byword for treachery.
Purgatorio Canto XXI:76-136. He who sold Christ.
-XGH
The brother of James. Author of the
General Epistle of Jude.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant
-XGLWK
The Jewish patriotic heroine and a
symbol of The Jewish struggle against
oppression She is usually shown
holding the head of Holofernes the Assyrian general whom she
decapitated with a sword. See
Apocrypha.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. She is seated in Heaven, below the Virgin.
1248
There are many Julias in the Imperial
Roman families. Here it is
Julius Caesar’s daughter by Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, that is meant.
She married Pompey. She is
mentioned as a type of the noble
Roman woman.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
-XOLXV&DHVDU
Gaius Julius Caesar, Roman General,
Consul and Dictator from 49 to 44 BC
when he was assassinated by Brutus,
Cassius and the other conspirators. He married Cornelia, the daughter of
Cinna, and had a daughter Julia.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. He is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
1249
Advised by Curio, according to Lucan
(see Pharsalia i. 281) Caesar crossed
the Rubicon (‘LDFWD DOHD HVW – the die
is cast’) near Rimini and declared war
by that act against the Republic in
49BC. The Rubicon was at that time
the boundary between Italy and
Cisalpine Gaul.
Purgatorio Canto XVIII:76-111. He
delegated the siege of Marseilles to
Brutus in 49BC to attack Pompey’s lieutenants Afranius and Petreius at
Lerida (Ilerda) in Catalonia.
Suetonius (Caesar 49) says that Caesar
was accused of being King
Nicomedes’s bedfellow, (Nicomedes
was King of Bithynia), and that his
soldiers chanted ribald songs about his
predilections during his Gallic
Triumph.
1250
campaigns and assassination
mentioned in the summary of Imperial
history.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. His fleet won a victory over the Pompeians near Marseilles in 49BC.
Paradiso Canto XI:43-117. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XVI:1-45. He was, according to legend, addressed in the
plural as YRL instead of WX when he
achieved pre-eminence. A Roman
custom, disused there in Dante’s time.
-XQR
The divine daughter of Saturn and
Rhea, who married her brother Jupiter.
The Queen of the Gods. She is the
Roman equivalent of Hera, as he is of
Zeus.
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. Juno was angered because of Jupiter’s adultery 1251
with Semele, whom she punished, and took vengeance on the house of
Cadmus of Thebes, her father. She pursued Ino, Semele’s sister by driving her husband Athamas mad. He killed their son Learchus, and drove Ino to throw herself over a cliff, with their
son Melicertes. Ino and Melicertes became sea-gods, namely Leucothea,
the White Goddess, and Palaemon. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses III 261 and IV
519.
Paradiso Canto XII:1-36. Iris, the rainbow, is her messenger.
Paradiso Canto XXVIII:1-57. The rainbow.
-XSLWHU
The divine son of Saturn and Rhea,
born in Crete and watched over in his
infancy by the priests of Ida. With his
brothers Neptune and Pluto
he
dethroned Saturn, and ruled the
1252
Heavens, Neptune winning the oceans, and Pluto the underworld. His wife
was Juno.
Inferno Canto XIV:43-72. The Giants made war on the gods, and were
overthrown by Jupiter’s lightning bolts
and buried under Sicily. Vulcan the son of Juno was the god of fire and the
blacksmith of the gods, who with the
Cyclopes forged Jupiter’s lightning bolt in the fires of Mount Aetna on
Sicily. He struck Capaneus, an Argive chief, with lightning in the war of the
seven against Thebes, for scaling the
wall (an allegory of pride).
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. Juno was angered because of Jupiter’s adultery
with Semele, whom she punished, and took vengeance on the house of
Cadmus of Thebes, her father. She pursued Ino, Semele’s sister by driving her husband Athamas mad. He killed their son Learchus, and drove Ino to 1253
throw herself over a cliff, with their son Melicertes. Ino and Melicertes became sea-gods, namely Leucothea,
the White Goddess, and Palaemon. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses III 261 and IV
519.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. He is depicted on the roadway.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:106-132. He
destroyed Phaethon to save the Earth, a judgment questioned by Sol,
Phaethon’s father.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:100-160. The Imperial eagle, the bird of power, is
his symbol.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. The idea that He and other gods inhered in the
planets named after them, led to the
influence of the stars, and of Pagan
Gods being confused, and both falsely
worshipped (Paganism and Astrology).
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. The son of Saturn and father of Mars, by 1254
Hera, regarded as temperate between
Saturn’s cold, and Mars’s heat.
-XVWLQLDQ(PSHURU
The Byzantine Emperor (527-565AD),
husband of Theodora (d. 548) who
ended the draining effects of the war
with the Sassanid Persians, enabling
him to concentrate on regaining the
western Empire (N.Africa 535, Italy
553, Southern Spain 554) through his
generals Belisarius and Narses. He
codified the Roman Law (&RUSXVMXULV
FLYLOLV). However Italy was lost to the
Langobards in 568. Dante looks back
to him as providing legal and imperial
continuity with Ancient Rome.
Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. He expands on the History of the Empire. He manifests himself to Dante in the
second sphere.
1255
The Roman satirist (c60-140AD) who
wrote during the reigns of the
Emperors Trajan and Hadrian. He was a friend of Martial.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:1-24. He is in Limbo.
/DFKHVLV
One of the Three Fates, the Moerae,
whom Erebus and Night conceived,
Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Atropos is the smallest but the most terrible.
Clotho spins the thread of life,
Lachesis measures it out, and Atropos
‘she who cannot be avoided or turned’
shears it. At Delphi only two fates
were worshipped of Birth and Death.
Dante here has Lachesis as the spinner,
and Clotho apparently as the measurer,
or Clotho is both and the syntax is
misleading.
1256
Purgatorio Canto XXI:1-33. She is mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto XXV:1-60. She is mentioned.
/DsUWHV
The father of Ulysses.
Inferno Canto XXVI:85-142. He is mentioned indirectly.
/DPEHUWD]]L)DEEURGH¶
A Ghibelline of Bologna, and Podestà
of several cities. His sons feuded with
the Geremei after his death in 1259.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned.
/DPEHUWL0RVFDGH¶
One of the initiators of the murder of
Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti, who was betrothed to a daughter of the
Amidei, but broke faith at the
instigation of Gualdrada Donati. In the
1257
debate as to whether he should be killed Mosca said the evil word, ‘A
thing done has an end.’ Buondelmonte
was murdered, at the foot of the statue
of Mars, on the Ponte Vecchio, in
1215. The family divisions created the
Guelph and Ghibelline factional
conflicts.
Inferno Canto VI:64-93. Dante asks after him.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:91-111. He is in the ninth chasm of the eighth circle,
as a sower of dissent.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. The family mentioned and their device of
the golden balls.
/DQFHORW
The knight of the round table in the
Arthurian legends who loves Queen
Guinevere, Arthur’s consort, illicitly, and indirectly brings about the
1258
destruction of the Round table, and the death of Arthur.
Inferno Canto V:70-142. Reading about his love corrupts Paolo and
/DQIUDQFKL*KLEHOOLQHVRI3LVD
/DQRVHH 0DFRQL
/DWLQL%UXQHWWR
A Florentine Guelf, Latini (ca1210-
1294) politician and philosopher, was
the author of a prose encyclopaedia /L
/LYUHV GRX 7UpVRU written in French (
he was in exile in France in 1260 after
Montaperti) and the 7HVRUHWWR, a
popular didactic poem in Italian,
containing similar matter, in the form
of an allegorical journey, a kind of
Pilgrim’s Progress, that clearly
influenced Dante, opening with the
1259
poet lost in a wood of error. An ardent Guelf, he introduced the art of oratory
and the study of political science into
Florence. In the 7HVRUHWWR he speaks
against
the homosexuality that
condemns him to Hell. He influenced
and possibly taught Dante.
Inferno Canto XV:1-42. He is in the seventh circle, last ring.
prophesies Dante’s fame, and the
enmity of the Florentines against him,
as one who tries to revive the ancient
Roman order.
Inferno Canto XV:100-124. He recommends his Trésor to Dante, and
Dante compares his departure to one
running the race at Verona, held on the
first Sunday in Lent, for which the
prize was a piece of green cloth, a
mantle, or SDOLR.
1260
King of Latium, and an ancestor of the
Roman people through his daughter
Lavinia the third wife of Aeneas.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. He is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
/DWRQD/HWR
The daughter of Coeus the Titan, and
the mother by Jupiter, of Apollo and
Artemis. She was refused a place on earth to rest by Juno, who was jealous, and found refuge, and bore the divine
twins, on the floating island of Delos,
in the Aegean, which Jupiter anchored
so that she could give birth. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses VI 160 et
passim.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. She is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154.The 1261
mother of the moon-goddess, Artemis-Diana.
Paradiso Canto XXIX:1-66. The mother of the sun and moon.
/DXUHQFH6DLQW
Paradiso Canto IV:64-114. The Christian martyr of Spanish birth who
was roasted on a gridiron over a fire,
in Rome, in 258AD. He was ordained
deacon by Pope Sixtus II, and met his
death shortly after the Pope’s own
martyrdom. He was said to have
displayed the poor and sick around
him as ‘the treasures of the Church’
when those treasures were demanded
of him. He was one of the patron saints
of Florence, with John the Baptist.
/DYLQLD
The daughter of Latinus and third wife of Aeneas. She was betrothed to 1262
Turnus initially. She is an ancestress of the Roman people.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
Purgatorio Canto XVII:1-39. She laments the death of her mother Queen
Amata, wife of King Latinus, who hanged herself through anger at the
death of the hero Turnus, to whom Lavinia was originally betrothed,
Lavinia being destined then to marry
Aeneas. The fate of Lavinia was part of the reason for the Wars in Latium.
See Aeneid xii 595.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. She is mentioned.
/D]DUXV
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. His
resurrection from the dead is alluded
to, John xi, as is the raising of Jairus’s
1263
daughter, Luke viii 49. He was the brother of Martha and Mary.
/HDK
The daughter of Laban, and sister of
Rachel, whom Jacob was deceived into marrying, after he worked seven
years to win Rachel. See Genesis xxix
and xxx. She is the fertile sister, and
the symbol of the active life. Her New
Testament equivalent is Martha. See
Luke x 38-42.
Purgatorio Canto XXVII:94-114. She appears in Dante’s dream.
/HDQGHU
A young man of Sestos, separated
from his lover Hero, at Abydos, by the
straits of the Hellespont (Dardanelles).
He swam across to her repeatedly, and
was ultimately drowned. See Ovid’s
Heroides xviii, xix, and Marlowe’s
Hero and Leander.
1264
Purgatorio Canto XXVIII:52-138. He is mentioned.
/HDUFKXV
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. Juno was angered because of Jupiter’s adultery with Semele, whom she punished, and took vengeance on the house of
Cadmus of Thebes, her father. She pursued Ino, Semele’s sister, by driving her husband Athamas mad. He killed their son Learchus, and drove
Ino to throw herself over a cliff, with
their son Melicertes. Ino and Melicertes became sea-gods, namely
Leucothea, the White Goddess, and
Palaemon. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses
III 261 and IV 519.
/HGD
The daughter of Thestius, and wife of
the Spartan king Tyndareus, who was
raped by Jupiter in the form a swan, 1265
and gave birth to the Gemini, the Twins Castor and Pollux. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses VI 109.
Paradiso Canto XXVII:97-148. She is mentioned.
/HQWLQR-DFRSRGD
Jacopo da Lentino ( LO 1RWDLR, the
Notary), Guittone del Viva known as Fra Guittone, of Arezzo (1230-1294:
one of the )UDWL *DXGHQWL) in his first
poetic period, and Bonagiunta were prominent members of the Sicilian
school of Poetry, continued in Central
Italy, based on Provençal traditions.
Their style lacked the spontaneity and
sweetness of the GROFH VWLO QXRYR
developed by Guido Guinicelli of Bologna, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante.
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:34-99. He is mentioned.
1266
The Levites were the priestly tribe,
among the ten tribes of Israelites,
inhibited from inheriting from others,
and given the tithe as an inheritance
themselves, in order to dedicate
themselves to spiritual matters. See
Numbers xviii 20, Deuteronomy xviii
2, Joshua xiii 14.
Purgatorio Canto XVI:97-145. They are mentioned.
/LELFRFFR
Inferno Canto XXI:97-139. A demon guarding the eighth circle, the fifth
chasm, of the barrators.
Inferno Canto XXII:31-75. He wants to torment Ciampolo.
/LQXV
The mythological poet, the brother of
Orpheus, and son of King Oeagrus and
the Muse Calliope (of epic poetry).
1267
Alternatively he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Urania (astronomy). He
was killed by jealous Apollo. He
composed poems honouring Dionysus
and a Creation epic. He is said to have
invented melody and rhythm. The
lament for him was widespread and is
the theme of the Egyptian song of
Maneros. His portrait was carved in
the rock on Helicon near the grove of
the Muses. He was claimed to have
been buried at Thebes.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the group of wise men in
Limbo.
/LQXV6DLQWDQG3RSH
Saint Linus, Pope (66-76AD).
Paradiso Canto XXVII:1-66. He died for the faith.
/LY\
Titus Livius, the Roman historian.
1268
records (xxiii 11, 12) that at the battle
of Cannae in 216 BC in the Second
Punic war, where Hannibal defeated the Romans, he showed the senate at
Carthage, three bushels of gold rings
taken from the corpses.
/L]LRGL9DOERQD
A Guelph noble of Bertinoro, and
follower of Rinier da Calboli. He died between 1279 and 1300.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned.
/RGHULQJR
One of the )UDWL *DXGHQWL, or Jovial
Friars, a derisive name for the
&DYDOLHUL GL 6 0DULD (2UGR PLOLWDH
EHDWDH0DULDH) founded at Bologna in
1261, with the approval of Urban IV,
to act as mediators, and protect the
weak. It was disbanded due to its
1269
laxity. Catelano de’ Catalini (or de’
Malavolti) c.1210-1285, and
Loderingo degh Andalò, a Ghibelline,
were called to Florence, from Bologna,
in 1266 to act together as Podestà, and
reform the government. They were
accused of hypocrisy and corruption
and expelled. The Gardingo district
(3LD]]D GL )LUHQ]H) the site of the
Uberti Palace, was destroyed in a
rising against the Ghibellines.
Inferno Canto XXIII:82-126. They are in the eighth circle.
/RPEDUGR0DUFR
A learned Venetian courtier, noted for
his breadth of mind, and profundity.
He flourished in the latter half of the
thirteenth century.
Purgatorio Canto XVI:25-96. He is among the wrathful.
1270
/XFDQ
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, AD 39-65,
the Roman writer, born in Cordova in
Spain and educated at Rome. He
served under Nero, fell into disfavour,
and committed suicide at Nero’s
command. His unfinished epic, the
Civil War, or ‘Pharsalia’ after its
climactic battle, was a poetical guide
to Dante in his ideas of Roman history.
Inferno Canto IV:64-105. He is among the great poets in Limbo.
Inferno Canto XXIV:61-96. His Pharsalia ix 708 et seq. and 805
provided Dante with the list of snakes.
Inferno Canto XXV:79-151. His Pharsalia ix 763, and 790, provides the
tale of the two soldiers stung by
serpents.
1271
The virgin martyr of Syracuse, in the
third Century AD, traditionally
associated with light and vision. She
is Dante’s patron Saint (he had
weakened eyesight) and is for him the
symbol of Illuminating Grace.
Inferno Canto II:94-120. The Virgin
sends her to Beatrice.
Purgatorio Canto IX:34-63. She carries Dante up to the entrance to Purgatory
proper, while Virgil follows.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:115-151. She sits to the right of the Virgin opposite
/XFLIHUVHH6DWDQ
/XFUHWLD
The wife of the Roman Collatine,
raped by Tarquin, son of Tarquinius
Superbus. A type of the noble,
1272
wronged wife. See Shakespeare’s 5DSHRI/XFUHFH
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
/XNH6DLQW
Purgatorio Canto XXI:1-33. Luke xxiv 13-15 writes of the appearance of
at Emmaus after the
Resurrection.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant.
/\FXUJXV
King of Nemea. Hypsipyle left his son, Opheltes (later Archemorus) on a
river-bank where he was bitten by a
snake. Statius Thebaid iv and v.
Purgatorio Canto XXVI:67-111. He is mentioned.
1273
Macarius the Egyptian (301-391) a
disciple of Saint Anthony, one of the monks of the Sinaitic desert.
Paradiso Canto XXII:1-99. He is in the seventh sphere.
0DFFDEHXV-XGDV
One of the five sons of Mattathias,
Judas Maccabeus, ‘The Hammerer’,
resisted the enforced Hellenization of
the Jewish people practised under
Antiochus IV of Syria (175-164). He
took Jerusalem and re-consecrated the
Temple ( 25 .LVOHY, 165BC
remembered by the &KDQXNDK festival)
Peace was achieved in 163BC and the
enforced Hellenization halted. He and
his brothers died in the continual
fighting until, in 143, Simon, the last
survivor expelled the Syrians. Simon
became the first High Priest and civil
1274
ruler of the newly established state, with the title 1DVL.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He is in the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
0DFRQL/DQR
Lano Maconi of Siena squandered his
fortune, then allowed himself to be
killed at the battle of Pieve del Toppo
where the Aretines defeated the
Sienese in 1288.
Inferno Canto XIII:109-129. He is in the seventh circle.
He was a member of the %ULJDWD
6SHQGHUHFFLD, the Spendthrift Brigade,
a club founded by twelve wealthy
Sienese, in the second half of the
thirteenth century, who vied with each
other in squandering their money on
riotous living.
Inferno Canto XXIX:121-139. Other members of the club are mentioned.
1275
0DKRPHW
Mohammed (c570-632AD), the
founder of Islam. He made his
‘Hegira’, the flight to Medina, the city
of the prophet, on 15 June 622, the
beginning of the Islamic calendar. He
returned to Mecca on November 1st
630, purified the city, and eliminated
idolatry in the Kaaba, the ancient Arab
shrine of the black stone. His teaching
spread throughout Arabia. He died in
Medina. Dante treats him as a
schismatic within the Biblical context.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:22-54. He is in the ninth chasm of the eighth circle,
with the schismatics.
0DLD
One of the Pleiades, the seven
daughters of Atlas, and the ocean-
1276
nymph Pleione. Their stars form the constellation in the neck of Taurus.
She was loved by Jupiter and gave birth to Mercury.
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. The mother of Mercury, and a name for
Mercury.
0DLQDUGL$UULJR
A Ghibelline of Bertinoro, and
follower of Pier Traversaro. He was captured with Pier by the people of
Faenza in 1170, and was still alive in
1228.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned.
0DODFRGDDGHPRQ
Inferno Canto XXI:59-96. The chief of the demons in the eighth circle, chasm
five of the barrators.
and
Inferno Canto XXIII:127-148. He 1277
causeway was impassable at the sixth
chasm.
0DODVSLQD$ODJLDGH¶)LHVFKL
The wife of Moroello III Malaspina.
One of her sisters, Fiesca, married
Alberto of a different Malaspina
branch, and the other, Jacopina, was
the wife of Obizzo II of Este.
Purgatorio Canto XIX:115-145. She is mentioned.
0DODVSLQD&RUUDGR
Currado II (d.c.1294) grandson of
Currado I, the elder, who married an
illegitimate daughter of Frederick II
and died about 1225.This Conrad’s
cousins were Moroello III (d.c.1315) the addressee of Dante’s third letter
accompanied by Canzone xi, and
Franceschino who was Dante’s host
(d. between 1313 and 1321) at Sarzana
1278
in Lunigiana in the autumn of 1306, less than seven years, the sun being
already in Aries, from the moment of
the Vision. The Malaspini were
Ghibellines but Moroello III was a
notable exception. Valdimagra, in
Liunigiana, north-west of Tuscany,
was part of their territory. Conrad is
mentioned in Boccaccio’s Decameron
(ii. 6)
Purgatorio Canto VIII:109-139. He is among the negligent rulers.
0DODVSLQD0RURHOOR
Vanni Fucci’s prophecy covers his involvement in the defeat of the
Whites in and around Pistoia in 1302-
6. He died c 1315. His wife was
Alagia de’ Fieschi.
1279
0DODWHVWD )UDQFHVFD GD 3ROHQWD
0DODWHVWD*LDQFLRWWR
Elder brother of Paolo, Il Bello, and husband of Francesca da Rimini. Son of Malatesta da Verucchio, Lord of Rimini. Brave but possibly deformed,
he slew the unfaithful Francesca along
with Paolo about 1285. According to
legend she thought that Paolo was her
intended husband when he stood proxy
for his brother in the marriage.
Giancotto died in 1304.
0DODWHVWDGD9HUXFFKLR
Father of Gianciotto and Paolo. Lord of Rimini, ruling from the castle of
Verrucchio (1293-1312)
Inferno Canto XXVII:31-57. He was
‘the old mastiff’, and his son
Malatestino ‘the young mastiff’, noted for their ferocious cruelty. Guelphs,
1280
they imprisoned (1295) and murdered, the Ghibelline leader in Rimini,
Montagna de’ Parcitati.
0DODWHVWD0DODWHVWLQR
The brother of Gianciotto and Paolo,
and son of Malatesta de Verrucchio, Lord of Rimini. Malatestino ruled
Rimini 1312-1317.
Inferno Canto XXVII:31-57. His father was ‘the old mastiff’, and he
was ‘the young mastiff’, noted for
their ferocious cruelty. Guelphs, they
imprisoned (1295) and murdered, the
Ghibelline leader in Rimini, Montagna
de’ Parcitati. In 1314 Cesena lost its freedom and came under Malatestino’s
rule.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:55-90. He obtained possession of Fano, and
added it to Rimini. He invited the two
chief nobles Guido del Cassero, and Agniello da Carignano to meet him at 1281
La Cattolica on the Adriatic between Fano and Rimini. Their boat was
intercepted and they were drowned off
the headland of Focaro, between Fano
and La Cattolica. The headland was
notorious for its dangerous winds, so
much so that sailors made vows and
prayers for safe passage.
0DODWHVWD3DRORLO%HOOR
Loved Francesca da Rimini and was killed by his brother Gianciotto, her husband, along with her in 1285. He
was himself married, to Orabile
Beatrice di Ghiacciuolo, and was
known as Il Bello for his personal
beauty.
Inferno Canto V:70-142. He weeps while Francesca tells Dante her story
in Limbo.
1282
The Malavicini, Counts of
Bagnacavallo, between Imola and
Ravenna, were Ghibellines, who in
1249 drove Guido da Polenta and his fellow Guelphs from Ravenna. They
were subsequently notorious from
their frequent changes of allegiance.
Bagnacavallo is mentioned.
0DOHKDXWWKH/DG\RI
‘At these words which the queen
spoke to him, the lady of Malehaut
coughed, of a set purpose, and lifted
her head that had been bowed.’
5RPDQFH RI /DQFHORW. The moment
was
Guinevere’s first open
acknowledgement of Lancelot.
Paradiso Canto XVI:1-45. The incident is referred to.
1283
Manfred (c1231-1266), the illegitimate
son of Emperor Frederick II (died 1250), grandson of the Emperor
Henry VI and his wife Constance. He married Beatrice of Savoy whom bore
him a daughter Constanza, who in 1262 married Peter III of Aragon.
Manfred was PDQXV )UHGHULFL, the
hand of Frederick, heir to his graces
and virtues. In 1258 he usurped the
rights of his nephew Conradin and became King of Sicily. He entered into
conflict, as a Ghibelline, with the
Papacy of Urban IV, and was again excommunicated (ultimately by three
Popes in succession). Clement IV
invited Charles of Anjou to Itakly, and he was crowned as the alternative
King of Sicily. Manfred was defeated
by Charles, on the plain of Grandella,
near Benevento (some thirty miles
northeast of Naples) on February 26th
1284
1266. He was killed there, and, refused Christian rites, was buried under a
cairn, on the battlefield, each surviving
soldier adding a stone. His body was
disinterred by the Bishop of Cosenza
on the Pope’s orders, and carried
across the River Verde (Garigliano)
outside the boundary of the Kingdom
of Naples, and the Papal States, so that
he might not rest in the usurped realm,
and with the rites used in
excommunication. He was a poet and
patron of letters, accused of many
things in his lifetime, including incest,
by the Guelphs.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. He is among he excommunicated.
0DQIUHGL)ULDU$OEHULJRGH¶
0DQIUHGL7HEDOGHOOR
1285
Petrus Comestor, ‘Peter the Eater of
Books’ (d. 1179) who wrote the
+LVWRULD 6FKRODVWLFD, a History of the
Church from Genesis to Acts,
paraphrasing the Scriptures. He
belonged to the Abbey of Saint Victor
in Paris, and became Chancellor of the
University of Paris in 1164.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
0DQWR
The daughter of Tiresias, and Apollo’s prophetic priestess, the Pythoness, at
Delphi, who married Rhacius, King of
Caria, and bore him (or Apollo) a son Mopsus who was a famous soothsayer.
association with the founding of
Mantua, Virgil’s birthplace, is given.
Virgil described an alternative version
1286
of Mantua’s founding in Aeneid X198-200.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. She is in Limbo. One of the people celebrated
by Statius in his epic poetry. If this is Manto, then Dante has already placed
her among the prophetesses in the
Inferno.
0DUFHOOXV
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the
Roman consul, who opposed Caesar,
pushing for him to be relieved of his
military command when peace was
declared, after the Gallic War, and for
the disbandment of the army, and
asking that Caesar should lose the
privilege of standing for the consulship
in absentia.
Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. He is mentioned.
1287
0DUFLDZLIHRI&DWR RI8WLFD
Noted for her integrity and nobility.
For Dante (and for Chaucer, as 0DUFLD
&DWRXQ) a type of the noble Roman
wife. She was Cato’s second wife who
yielded her to his friend Quintus
Hortensius. When he died she married
Cato again. Dante’s Convito treats her
return to Cato as an allegory of the
soul’s return to God.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
Purgatorio Canto I:28-84. Virgil tells Cato so, and invokes her love for him.
Purgatorio Canto I:85-111. Separated from Cato, by the stream that separates
Purgatory from Hell, she can no longer
move him.
0DUFRVHH /RPEDUGR
1288
The second wife of
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. She is mentioned.
0DUJDUHW RI 3URYHQFH ZLIH RI
0DUV
The son of Jupiter and Juno. The god of War. He was present at the battle
with the Giants.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. He is depicted on the roadway.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. The idea that He and other gods inhered in the
planets named after them, led to the
influence of the stars, and of Pagan
Gods being confused, and both falsely
worshipped in Paganism and
Astrology.
1289
Paradiso Canto VIII:85-148. The nominal father of Romulus.
Paradiso Canto IX:127-142. The founder and patron god of Florence,
identified by Dante with Satan.
Paradiso Canto XIV:67-139. Dante’s vision of Christ on the Cross.
Paradiso Canto XVI:1-45. Mars is identified with the constellation Leo,
though not its astrological ruler,
because of Dante’s cluster of
associations, around the idea of
courage and fortitude, among them the
animal, and the planet.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. A statue of Mars stood by the Ponte Vecchio.
Buondelmonte was killed at its foot.
Mars was the patron of the Florentines
in Pagan days and his temple with a
highly venerated statue stood on the
site of the present Baptistery. When
John the Baptist was adopted as the Christian patron saint of Florence, the
1290
statue of Mars was moved to a site by the Arno, where it was reverenced as
protecting the State though the
factionalism in the city was attributed
to its influence. When Florence was
destroyed by the Goths, the statue fell
into the Arno, and it was held that
Florence could not be rebuilt from the
ruins unless the image was found. It
was rescued from the Arno and set on
a pillar at the north side of the Ponte
Vecchio, when the city was restored
by Charlemagne. It was lost in the great flood of 1333 when the Ponte
Vecchio was destroyed.
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. The hot-blooded son of Jupiter.
0DUV\DV
Paradiso Canto I:1-36. A satyr of Phrygia who competed with Apollo in
a contest of musical skill, pipes against
lyre. Marsyas was defeated, by the
1291
god. Apollo flayed him for challenging his skill, and Dante asks for the
inspirational breath with which Apollo
played on that occasion. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses VI 382.
0DUWLQ,93RSH
Simon de Brie of Tours, Pope from
1281 to 1285 with the name of Martin
IV. He had been papal legate in France
and was elected by the influence of
Charles of Anjou. He died of eating too many eels from the lake of
Bolsena, stewed in Vernaccia wine. He
was buried at Viterbo.
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:1-33. He is among he gluttonous.
0DU\RI%UDEDQW4XHHQRI)UDQFH
Mary of Brabant was accused by
Pierre de la Brosse, the surgeon and afterwards
chamberlain
of
King Philip III of France, and by 1292
others, of having murdered Louis, Philip’s son by his first wife, with
poison, in 1276. She destroyed Pierre
by falsely accusing him of an attempt
on her honour, and of treasonable
correspondence with Alfonso X of
Castile, Philip’s enemy. Pierre was
hanged for this in 1278.
Purgatorio Canto VI:1-24. She is advised by Dante to repent.
0DU\RI-HUXVDOHP
A woman, who devoured her own
child, rather than endure famine,
during the terrible siege of Jerusalem,
by Titus, the son of Vespasian, in
AD70. Titus subsequently razed the
city and the Temple, and robbed the
inner sanctuary of its sacred objects,
including the Scroll of the Law.
Purgatorio Canto XXIII:1-36. She is mentioned.
1293
The Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of
Jesus of Nazareth, for Dante the
symbol of Divine Mercy. She took on
much of the symbolism of the pre-
Christian Great Goddesses, including
that of Isis, consort of the Egyptian
god Osiris. Isis had a wide following
in the Roman Empire. She was
depicted with the infant Horus on her
knee, and was the ‘stella maris’ of
Mediterranean seamen.
Her name and that of Christ are never
mentioned in the Inferno, where she is
‘XQSRVVHQWH¶ a powerful spirit.
Inferno Canto II:94-120. She sends
Lucia to Beatrice to aid Dante.
Purgatorio Canto III:1-45. The virgin birth brought revealed truth into the
world, to increase humanity’s
incomplete knowledge.
Buonconte da Montefeltro one of the 1294
late-repentants died with her name on his lips.
Purgatorio Canto VIII:1-45. The guardian Angels with burning swords
come from Mary’s breast.
Purgatorio Canto X:1-45. Gabriel’s
Annunciation to her is sculpted on the
frieze, indicating humility as a
corrective to pride.
Purgatorio Canto XIII:1-45. The first voice repeats the words Mary spoke at
the Marriage feast at Cana. See John ii
3.
Purgatorio Canto XIII:46-84. The shades repeat the Litany of the Saints.
Purgatorio Canto XV:82-145. Her words in the temple to Christ.
Purgatorio Canto XVIII:76-111. After the Annunciation ‘Mary arose in those
days, and went into the hill country
with haste, into a city of Juda.’ See
Luke 1.39.
1295
Purgatorio Canto XX:1-42. ‘And laid him in a manger, because there was no
room for them in the inn’ See Luke ii
7.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. She is described as the only Bride of the Holy
Spirit.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:115-154. The Marriage in Cana, John ii 3, is again
referenced. Mary intercedes for
mankind in Paradise.
Purgatorio Canto XXV:109-139. At
the Annunication Mary said: ‘How
shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
(YLUXPQRQFRJQRVFR)’ See Luke i 31-
34.
Purgatorio Canto XXXIII:1-57. Her vigil at the foot of the Cross, as the
PDWHU GRORURVD, is mentioned. See
John xix 25-27.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. She exists with God in the Empyrean.
1296
Paradiso Canto XI:43-117. Her presence at the Crucifixion is
mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XIII:52-90. The supreme perfection of female Human
Nature.
Paradiso Canto XIV:1-66. The Annunciation is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. Called on in childbirth. Madonna del Parto.
Paradiso Canto XXIII:49-87. The Vision of her as the sacred Rose,
coupled with the vision of the Apostles
as the sacred Lilies.
Paradiso Canto XXIII:88-139. The crowned Queen of Heaven.
Paradiso Canto XXV:97-139. On the cross, Christ committed her to the care
of Saint John. See John xix 26-27. She and Christ, alone, rose to Heaven in
body as well as spirit.
1297
Paradiso Canto XXXI:94-142. Dante, with Saint Bernard, gazes at the Virgin enthroned in Heaven.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. The Virgin heads the descending line,
through the Rose, that separates those
who believed before Christ, from those
who acquired faith after his coming.
Below her are the ranks of Hebrew
women who were ancestresses of
Christ, and types of his Church.
Corresponding to her on the other side
Gabriel in Heaven shows his adoration for her.
0DU]XFFRVHH 6FRUQLJLDQL
0DVFKHURQL6DVVRO
One of the Florentine Toschi family,
killed his nephew, or perhaps his
brother, to obtain the inheritance.
1298
Inferno Canto XXXII:40-69. He is in Caïna, in the Ninth Circle.
0DWLOGD
The type of the active life, equivalent
to Leah. Historically, Matelda, the Grancontessa of Tuscany (1046-1115)
supporter of Pope Gregory VII was
probably intended.
Purgatorio Canto XXVIII:1-51. Dante meets her.
Purgatorio Canto XXVIII:52-138. She explains features of the Garden of
Eden, the Earthly Paradise to him.
0DWWKLDV6DLQW
Inferno Canto XIX:88-133. See Acts i 13-26. Matthias was chosen by the
Apostles, by lot, to fill the place
among the Disciples forfeited by
1299
Inferno Canto XVIII:67-99. The daughter of Aeetes, King of Colchis,
who fell in love with Jason, helped him with her witchcraft, and was
abandoned by him for Creusa. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses VII 406.
0HGLFLQD3LHUR%LDQFXFFLGD
The family were lords of Medicina,
about twenty miles east of Bologna.
Pier was deprived of a praetorship by
Frederick II, and his family were driven out of Romagna in 1287. He
sowed dissent among the rulers of
Romagna, setting Polenta
and
Malatesta against each other. The city of Vercelli in Piedmont and the castle
of Marcabò near Ravenna, at the
mouth of the Po, are the western and
eastern extremities of old Romagna,
the plain of Lombardy.
1300
Inferno Canto XXVIII:55-90. He is in the ninth chasm of the sowers of
discord.
0HGXVD
The daughter of Phorcys, she is one of
the Gorgons. The other two are
Euryale and Stheino. Medusa was
raped by Neptune(Poseidon) in the
temple of Minerva(Athene), who
changed her to a winged monster with
snakes for hair, her gaze turning
anyone who looked at her to stone.
Perseus decapitated her, looking at her
reflection in his shield, and used her
head to turn Atlas to stone. Pegasus
the winged horse and Chrysaor a
warrior sprang from her blood. She
symbolises oduracy, delaying
repentance.
Inferno Canto IX:34-63. The Erinyes
(Furies) invoke her, in order to be able
1301
to turn Dante to stone (harden his heart).
0HOFKLVHGHN
The king and high-priest who received
Abraham at Salem (Jerusalem) and
blessed him. Abraham paid him a tithe
of his spoils of victory. See Genesis
xiv 18-24.
Paradiso Canto VIII:85-148. The type of the priest.
0HOHDJHU
The son of Oeneus, King of Calydon
and Althaea daughter of Thestius. His
life depended on a brand of wood that
was burning in the fire at his birth, and
that was rescued by his mother. He
killed the Calydonian Boar and gave
the skin to Atalanta (of Calydon) and
when his uncles took it from her,
killed them. Althaea burned the brand
to revenge her son’s murder of her two
1302
brothers. He then died as it was consumed. One of his sisters was
Deianira. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses VIII 445-525.
Purgatorio Canto XXV:1-79. He is mentioned.
0HOLFHUWHV
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. Juno was angered because of Jupiter’s adultery with Semele, whom she punished, and took vengeance on the house of
Cadmus of Thebes, her father. She pursued Ino, Semele’s sister, by driving her husband Athamas mad. He killed their son Learchus, and drove Ino to throw herself over a cliff, with
their son Melicertes. Ino and
Melicertes became sea-gods, namely
Leucothea, the White Goddess, and
Palaemon. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses
III 261 and IV 519.
1303
The Greek philosopher, considered by
Aristotle an example of the powers of false-reasoning.
Paradiso Canto XIII:91-142. He is mentioned.
0DQDOLSSXV
0HUFXU\
The messenger God, son of Jupiter and Maia, one of the Pleiades.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. He
lulled Argus to sleep, and killed him at the request of Jupiter.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. The idea that He and other gods inhered in the
planets named after them, led to the
influence of the stars, and of Pagan
Gods being confused, and both falsely
worshipped in Paganism
and
Astrology.
1304
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. Called Maia, as the son of Maia.
0HWHOOXV
Purgatorio Canto IX:106-145. A follower of Pompey, who tried to protect the Roman Treasury in the
Temple of Saturn on the Tarpeian
(Captoline) Hill, from Caesar’s plundering of it. Lucan in Pharsalia iii
153-168 stresses the sound of the
Temple gates being opened.
0LFKDHOWKH$UFKDQJHO
Inferno Canto VII:1-39. He warred against the dragon of Revelation XII,
‘that old serpent called the Devil, and
Satan, which deceiveth the whole
world’. Satan fell through pride, and is
the great falsifier, deceiver, and
adulterator of God’s universe. I take
that as the sense of ‘VXSHUERVWUXSR¶.
1305
Purgatorio Canto XIII:46-84. The shades repeat the Litany of the Saints.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He is shown with human form though beyond the
human.
0LFKHOVHH =DQFKH
0LFKDO
The
daughter of Saul who saw King David
leaping and dancing and despised him
in her heart. See Second Samuel vi 16.
0LGDV
The King of Phrygia, son of Gordius
and Cybele, granted a wish by
Bacchus, for helping his companion
Silenus, and who wished that
everything he touched might turn to
gold. He soon regretted his greed. He
was also given ass’s ears for
challenging Tmolus’s judgement
1306
which preferred Apollo’s lyre to Pan’s pipes. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses XI
106 et seq.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
0LQRV
The mythical King of Crete, son of
Zeus and Europa, brother of
Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, lawgiver
and builder of the Labyrinth at
Cnossus, Daedalus being the architect.
He was appointed by Zeus as one of
the three judges of the dead, with
Rhadamanthys and Aeacus, and lived
in the Elysian Fields in the
Underworld. He ruled over ninety
Cretan cities and controlled navigation
of the Mediterranean. He is the judge
of the infernal regions in Virgil’s Aeneid and is for Dante a symbol of
the sinner’s guilty conscience.
1307
Inferno Canto XIII:79-108. He sentences the sinners in Hell.
Inferno Canto XX:31-51. He is already in Hell to receive Amphiaraüs.
Inferno Canto XXVII:58-136. He coils his tail eight times, to indicate that
Guido da Montefeltro should be sent to the eighth chasm of the eighth
circle.
Inferno Canto XXIX:100-120. He is an infallible judge.
Purgatorio Canto I:28-84. Virgil is not bound by him, being in Limbo, not
Dis.
Paradiso Canto XIII:1-51. Ariadne was his daughter.
0LQRWDXU
Asterion, the bull-headed son
produced by Minos’s wife Pasiphaë’s
mating with ‘a white bull from the
sea’, sacred to Poseidon. He was
imprisoned in the Labyrinth of
1308
Cnossos, and killed by Theseus, who was helped by Asterion’s half-sister
Ariadne, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë. He is for Dante, the type of
bestiality, violence and brutishness.
(See also Ovid’s Metamorphoses VIII
132-169)
Inferno Canto XII:1-27. He guards the descent to the seventh circle.
0RQDOGLRI2UYLHWR
Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. Feuded with the Filippeschi.
0RQWDJQDVHH 3DUFLWDWL
0RQWDJXHV0RQWHFFKLRI9HURQD
Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. Feuded with the Capulets, see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for a fictitious recreation of the feuding.
1309
The son of Guido da Montefeltro, and like him a Ghibelline leader. He was in
command of the Aretines when they
were defeated at Campaldino by the
Florentine Guelphs on June 11th 1289,
and was killed there. Dante is
supposed to have taken part on the
Florentine side. Giovanna was his wife. Campaldino is in the upper Val
d’ Arno, or district of Casentino,
bounded by the mountains of
Pratomagno to the west and the
Apennine chain on the east. It lies
between Poppi and Bibiena, where the
River Archiano, which rises in the
Apennines ,above the Monastery of
Camaldoli, flows into the Arno, about
an hour’s walk from the battlefield.
The mist and fog is a common feature
of the valley.
1310
Purgatorio Canto V:85-129. He is among the late repentant killed by
violence.
0RQWHIHOWUR*XLGRGD
The Lord of Urbino, and one of the
great Ghibelline captains. He became a
Franciscan friar in 1296. Boniface VIII
summoned him from his retreat in
1297 to consult with him about the
razing of Palestrina (Penestrino)
twenty-five miles east of Rome, held
by the Colonna family, who were in
rebellion against the Church. Guido,
finding it impregnable, advised
Boniface to promise immunity and
then break it, inducing the Colonna to
surrender, (in September 1298), then
razing the fortress to the ground. Dante
regarded Guido highly for his entering
the Franciscan order (See his &RQYLYLR
iv 28). Guido was born in 1223 and
1311
died in 1298. His son Buonconte
appears in the Purgatorio.
Inferno Canto XXVII:58-136. He is in the eighth circle.
0RQWIHUUDW0DUTXLV:LOOLDPRI
0RQWIRUW*X\GH
The son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester. He avenged the death of his
father at the battle of Evesham (1265)
where Edward (later Edward I)
defeated the English barons, when, in
1271, while vicar general of Tuscany
he murdered +HQU\, his cousin, the
son of Richard Earl of Cornwall, the
nephew of the English king, in the
church of San Silvestro at Viterbo.
Henry’s heart was placed in a gold
casket, and set on a pillar by London
Bridge, or in the hand of his statue in
Westminster Abbey.
1312
Inferno Canto XII:100-139. He is placed in the seventh circle of the
violent, first ring.
0RUGHFDL
Ahasuerus, the Persian King, enriched
Haman, until he was accused by Esther
of intending to take the life of
Mordecai. Haman was executed in
Mordecai’s place. See Esther iii-viii.
Purgatorio Canto XVII:1-39. He
is mentioned.
0RUGUHG
The nephew and son of King Arthur,
who attempted to usurp his kingdom.
In the last battle Arthur pierced
Mordred with his lance, at the same
time receiving his own death-wound.
According to an Old French version of
the theme, which differs from
Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, ‘after the
1313
lance was withdrawn a ray of sunlight passed through the wound...’
Inferno Canto XXXII:40-69. He is in Caïna, in the Ninth Circle.
0RURQWREURWKHURI&DFFLDJXLGD
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. He is mentioned.
0RVFDVHH /DPEHUWL
0RVHV
The lawgiver, who led Israel out of
Egypt. See the Bible Exodus ii. The
type of the faithful man who does not
swerve from service to the God of
Israel.
Inferno Canto IV:1-63. Christ takes his spirit from Limbo into Paradise.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. At the Transfiguration, see Matthew xviii 1-8, Christ shone like the sun in white 1314
raiment, and Moses and Elias appeared talking with him.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He exists with God in the Empyrean.
Paradiso Canto XXIV:115-154. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXVI:1-69. The Lord says to Moses ‘I will make all my
goodness pass before thee’ Exodus
xxxiii 19. The Vulgate says HJR
RVWHQGDPRPQHERQXPWLEL.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:115-151. He
sits to the left of Adam in Heaven.
0R]]L$QGUHDGH¶
Andrea dei Mozzi, was made Bishop
of Florence in 1287 and transferred to
the see of Vicenza on the River
Bacchiglione, in 1295, by Pope
Boniface VIII. He died there the following year. 6HUYXV VHUYRUXP 'HL
was one of the Popes official titles,
from Gregory I (590-604) onwards.
1315
Inferno Canto XV:100-124. He is in Hell for sodomy.
0R]]L5RFFRGH¶
Inferno Canto XIII:130-151. Possibly the speaker is Rocco, who hanged
himself, as a bankrupt, or alternatively
Lotto degh Agh.
0XVHV
The Nine Muses, the daughters of
Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory), the
patronesses of the liberal arts. Their
names were Clio (History),
Melpomene (Tragedy), Thalia
(Comedy), Euterpe (Lyric poetry),
Terpsichore (Dance), Calliope (Epic
poetry), Erato (Love poetry), Urania
(Astronomy, and the Music of the
Spheres), and Polyhymnia (Sacred
Song). Calliope, the mother of
Orpheus, is the eldest sister of the Muses. They lived on Mount Helicon
1316
and Mount Parnassus, where their sacred springs were Aganippe and
Hippocrene on the first, and Castalia
on the second. They are ‘doctae
sorores’ the ‘learned sisters’. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses V.
Inferno Canto XXXII:1-39. Dante invokes their help.
Purgatorio Canto I:1-27. Dante declares his allegiance to them.
The Muses took up the challenge
issued by the nine daughters of King
Pierus, the Emathides, also called the
Pierides, a name for the Muses
themselves, from Pieria, the earliest
site of their worship. The Emathides
were defeated and were turned into
magpies. Calliope lead the singing.
See Ovid’s Metamorphoses V 300 etc.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. They (and their mountain Parnassus) are
mentioned, as the foster-mothers of the
pagan poets.
1317
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:37-61. Dante invokes the Muses, and the streams of
Helicon, and calls on Urania.
Paradiso Canto II:1-45. The Muses show the poet his means of guiding
himself.
Paradiso Canto XII:1-36. They are mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:58-99. The fountain of Hippocrene on Helicon,
sprang from a blow of the hoof of
Pegasus, the winged horse, born from
the blood of Medusa. He and his brother Chrysaor the warrior were
sired by Neptune. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses IV 768, V 257.
Paradiso Canto XXIII:49-87. Dante mentions Polyhymnia.
0\UUKD
daughter of Cinyras who conceived an incestuous passion for her father, and
1318
in darkness, using an assumed name, entered his bed. She conceived
Adonis, and was changed into the
myrrh-tree from which Adonis was
born. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses X
489.
1DUFLVVXV
Inferno Canto XXX:91-129. The son of the naiad Liriope and the river-god
Cephisus who fell in love with his own
beautiful image in a still pool, and was
loved by Echo in vain. He was
changed to a flower, WKHQDUFLVVXV, and
she wasted away to become an
echoing voice. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses III 407.
Paradiso Canto III:1-33. He is mentioned.
1DVLGLXV
Lucan, in Pharsalia ix 763 and 790, tells of the two soldiers of Cato’s army who were stung by snakes while
1319
marching across Libya. Nasidius swelled so that his coat of mail gave
way, while the other melted.
Inferno Canto XXV:79-151. The story is mentioned.
1DVR 2YLG
The Roman poet, Publius Ovidius
Naso, born at Sulmo in 43 BC. He was
exiled from Augustan Rome in AD8
(for a poem, probably the Ars
Amatoria, and an error, probably an
indiscretion concerning Augustus’s
wayward daughter Julia) and died at
Tomis on the Black Sea in AD 17. His
greatest work is the Metamorphoses, a
retelling of Myths down to his own
time, based on the theme of change.
This, the ‘2YLGLR 0DJJLRUH’ was the
main source for Dante’s knowledge of
Mythology, along with Virgil’s
Aeneid. (For a modern English
translation of the Metamorphoses,
1320
or
download
from
Inferno Canto IV:64-105. He is among the great poets in Limbo.
Inferno Canto XXV:79-151. He is mentioned by name, his
Metamorphoses providing stories of
transformations.
Inferno Canto XXIX:37-72. The Plague at Aegina is retold in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses VII 523-657. Jupiter
restored the population after the plague
sent by Juno, by transforming ants into
men, called the Myrmidons from the
Greek word for an ant. Valdichiano
and Maremma in Tuscany, and the
island of Sardinia, are also mentioned
here for their unhealthiness in summer.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:115-154.
Dante refers to the Golden Age,
described by Ovid in the
Metamorphoses I 103 et seq.
1321
He denounced David’s sins. See Second Samuel xii.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
1HEXFKDGQH]]DU
Nebuchadnezzar I, King of the
Babylonian Empire, (flourished 1137
BC) who liberated the country from
Elamite rule. He besieged and took
Jerusalem, and figures in the Book of
1HOODZLIHRI)RUHVH'RQDWL
Purgatorio Canto XXIII:37-90. She is mentioned.
1HSWXQH
The sea-god, the son of Saturn and brother of Jupiter and Pluto. He is the Greek Poseidon.
1322
Paradiso Canto XXXIII:49-145. He is mentioned.
1HUOLRI)ORUHQFH
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. One of the ancient Guelph families.
1HVVXV
The Centaur, son of Ixion, killed by
Hercules, with an arrow poisoned with the Hydra’s blood, for his attempt to
steal and rape Deianira. He dipped his fatal shirt in his own, poisoned, blood,
and gave it as a gift (a supposed love
charm) to Deianira, who thereby,
unwittingly, brought about Hercules’s
death.
Inferno Canto XII:49-99. He displays his usual rashness in the seventh circle.
1LFFROR6DOLPEHQLRU%XRQVLJQRUL
A member of the %ULJDWD
6SHQGHUHFFLD, the Spendthrift Brigade,
1323
a club founded by twelve wealthy Sienese, in the second half of the
thirteenth century, who vied with each
other in squandering their money on
riotous living. He appears to have
invented a costly dish using cloves.
Inferno Canto XXIX:121-139. He is in the tenth chasm.
1LFKRODV%LVKRSDQG6DLQW
The fourth century Bishop of Myra in
Lydia who saved the honour of three
poor daughters of a fellow-townsman,
by secretly throwing bags of gold
through their window at night,
enabling them to marry with a dowry.
He is known as St Nicholas of Bari
where his shrine is. (See /HJHQGD
$XUHD)
Purgatorio Canto XX:1-42. He is mentioned.
1324
Inferno Canto XIX:31-87. Nicholas III, Giovanni Guatani Orsini, Pope
from 1277 to 1280. The Orsini family emblem was a she-bear. He had to
wait 23 years in Hell until the death of
Boniface his successor in 1303, who would in turn wait only eleven years
for the death of Clement V. (Benedict XI, in between them, Pope from 1303-1304 was not given to simony.)
1LPURG
The mighty hunter, son of Cush,
grandson of Ham the son of Noah, and
ruler of Babel (Babylon), see Genesis
x 9, under whose rule Dante places the
building of the tower of Babel, in the
land of Shinar, which God frowned on,
confounding their language, see
Genesis xi 4. So Dante has Nimrod
speak in an unintelligible mixture of
tongues.
1325
Inferno Canto XXXI:46-81. He is a Giant guarding the central pit.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. He is depicted on the roadway.
1LQRVHH 9LVFRQWL
1LQXV
Inferno Canto V:52-72. The Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad V, King of
Assyria, whom his wife Semiramis
(Sammuramat) was believed to have
succeeded, as regent during the
minority of her son from 810-805BC.
1LREH
The daughter of the Phrygian king
Tantalus, and Dione, one of the
Pleiades. The wife of Amphion, king of Thebes. She roused the wrath of
Latona through boasting of her seven
sons and seven daughters. They were
slaughtered, and she was turned to
1326
stone on Mount Siphylus in Asia Minor where her statue weeps tears.
See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Vi 172 et
seq.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. She is depicted on the roadway.
1LVXV
Inferno Canto I:100-111. The son of Hyrtacus, comrade of Euryalus in the Aeneid. He dies avenging the death of
Euryalus in Aeneid IX.
1RDK
The builder of the ark, by which
mankind survived the great flood. See
the Bible Genesis vi. The type of the
pious man.
Inferno Canto IV:1-63. Christ takes his spirit from Limbo into Paradise.
Paradiso Canto XII:1-36. God’s covenant with him, Genesis ix 8.
1327
Bishop of Feltre, who in 1314
surrendered certain gentlemen of
Ferrara, in his protection, to Pino della
Tosa who then governed Ferrara as
vicar of King Robert, by whom they were killed. Malta was a tower near
Padua where Ezzelino held his prisoners, or a Papal prison for
criminal priests either at Viterbo, or on
the Lake of Bolsena.
Paradiso Canto IX:1-66. He is mentioned.
2EL]]RVHH (VWH
2GHULJL2GHULVLRI*XEELR
An illuminator and painter of
miniatures. Vasari says he was at
Rome in 1295, to illuminate
manuscripts, in the Vatican Library,
for Pope Boniface VIII, and the work was shared with Franco of Bologna.
1328
Purgatorio Canto XI:73-117. He is among the proud.
2HGLSXV
The son of Laius, and Jocasta who killed his father laius and married his
mother. See Sophocles Theban
Trilogy. Themis was the goddess of Justice, daughter of Heaven and Earth,
with oracular powers, and the Sphinx
was her oracular priestess, who set
Oedipus the famous riddle ‘ What goes
on four legs in the morning, two at
midday, and three in the evening?’
which he answered correctly with
‘Mankind’. Themis in anger at the
riddle being solved sent a wild beast to
ravage the countryside. Dante says
1DLDGHV instead of /DLDGHV for
Oedipus the son of Laius, following a
textual corruption of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses VII 759 et al where
the story is referred to.
1329
Purgatorio Canto XXXIII:1-57. She is mentioned.
2PEHUWRVHH $OGREUDQGHVFR
2UGHODIIL6LQLEDOGRGHJOL
Inferno Canto XXVII:31-57. Sinibaldo held Forlì in 1300, which had endured
a long siege by the French soldiers of
Pope Martin IV, who were finally routed with great slaughter by
Guido da Montefeltro himself. The family arms were a lion rampant vert
on a field or.
2UHVWHVDQG3\ODGHV
The son of Agamemnon
and
Clytaemnestra, and brother of Electra,
and Iphigenia, who killed the usurper Aegisthus, and his mother
Clytaemnestra to avenge his father’s
murder at their hands. His friendship
with Pylades, the son of Strophius was
1330
proverbial. Pylades offered to take his place when he was condemned to
death, see Cicero De Amicitia 7.
Purgatorio Canto XIII:1-45. His is the second voice.
2UODQGR5RODQG
Charlemagne’s nephew, and the hero of the battle of Roncesvalles, who,
went down to defeat with his Franks,
fighting against the Saracens, while
attempting to hold the valley in
778AD. He blew his horn in
desperation, to alert his uncle eight
miles away, but Charlemagne was
misled by the advice of the traitor
Ganelon, and did not provide aid. The epic is told in the Old French &KDQVRQ
GH 5RODQG, the ‘Song of Roland’,
where the intensity of his blast on the
horn shattered it. The defeat allowed
Arab incursions into Narbonne in 793.
1331
Inferno Canto XXXI:1-45. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He is in the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
2UPDQQLRI)ORUHQFH
An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
2URVLXV3DROXV
An early fifth century writer, whose
+LVWRULD DGYHUVXV 3DJDQRV was an
apologetic treatise written at the
suggestion of Augustine to show that Christianity had not ruined the Empire,
as Pagans contended.
Paradiso Canto X:100-129. He is in the fourth sphere of Prudence.
1332
The mythical son of the Thracian King
Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope (of
epic poetry). He was both poet and
musician. He attempted to rescue his
wife Eurydice from Hades but lost her
when he broke the injunction not to
look back. He taught the sacred
mysteries of the Goddess in defiance
of Dionysus and was torn to pieces by
the Maenads. His head floated down
the river Hebrus and was carried to the
island of Lesbos. The Muses buried his
limbs at Leibethra at the foot of
Olympus where the nightingales sing
more sweetly than anywhere else on
earth.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the group of wise men in
Limbo.
1333
Inferno Canto XIX:31-87. The family emblem was a she-bear. The Pope
Nicholas III was of the family.
2UVRVHH $OEHUWL
2VWLHQVH+HQU\RI6XVD
Henry of Susa became Cardinal
Bishop of Ostia in 1261, and was a
commentator on the Decretals. He died
in 1271. Studied by those seeking
professional standing.
Paradiso Canto XII:37-105. He is mentioned.
2WWDYLDQRVHH 8EDOGLQL
2WWRFDU.LQJRI%RKHPLD
King of Bohemia (1253-1278), but
forced to serve under Rudolph I who asserted his supremacy, when elected
Emperor. Ottakar paid homage, but
1334
refused to return Imperial lands, and died at the battle of the Marchfeld near
Vienna in 1278. Ottocar’s son
Wenceslas II (1278-1305)(QRW the earlier king and Saint) was allowed to
retain Bohemia and Moravia, but had
to give up Austria and Styria
(Rudolph’s sons Albert and Rudolph were invested with these), Carinthia
and Carniola.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is one of the negligent rulers.
2YLGVHH 1DVR
3DJDQL0DJKLQDUGRGH¶
Inferno Canto XXVII:31-57. Mainardo Pagano, or Maghinardo Pagano da
Susinana, lord of Faenza on the River
Lamone; Imola, near the Santerno; and
Forlì. His arms were a lion azure on a
field argent. He was a Ghibelline in
1335
the north (‘VWDWH’) and a Guelph in Florence (‘YHUQR’). He died in 1302.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned. He was called ‘the devil’
because of his cunning.
3DOD]]R&RUUDGRGD
A Ghelph of Brescia, Vicar for
Charles of Anjou in Florence (1276), Podestà of Siena (1279) and of
Piacenza (1288).
Purgatorio Canto XVI:97-145. He is mentioned.
3DOODVVRQRI(YDQGHU
An Arcadian prince, the son of
Evander, who ruled a city on the site
of Rome, formed an alliance with
Aeneas and was killed by Turnus. See Virgil’s Aeneid viii-x.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
1336
Purgatorio Canto V:130-136. The husband of Pia de Tolomei, who
caused her death. See La Pia.
3DUFLWDWL0RQWDJQDGH¶
Inferno Canto XXVII:31-57. He was the Ghibelline leader in Rimini,
imprisoned
by
Malatesta da Verrucchio in 1295, and murdered by his son Malatestino.
3DULVVRQRI3ULDP
The Trojan Prince whose abduction of
Helen from Sparta initiated the Trojan War. (See Homer’s Iliad.) The son of Priam and Hecuba. Paris was involved
in judging the merits of the three
goddesses Hera, Athene, and
Aphrodite, choosing Aphrodite,
Goddess of Love, as supreme. (The
Judgement of Paris). To Dante and the
1337
Middle Ages the type of the great (pagan) lover.
Inferno Canto V:52-72. He is a carnal sinner in Limbo.
3DUPHQLGHV
The Greek philosopher, considered by
Aristotle an example of the powers of false-reasoning.
Paradiso Canto XIII:91-142. He is mentioned.
3DVLSKDs
The wife of Minos of Crete, and mother of the Minotaur, Asterion, whom she conceived by coupling,
concealed in a wooden framework
made to look like a heifer, with a white
bull from the sea. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses VIII 132 and IX 736.
Inferno Canto XII:1-27. Mentioned indirectly.
1338
Mentioned as an example of lust.
3DXO6DLQW
Saul of Tarsus, born about 10AD,
Jewish by birth but a Roman citizen.
He underwent conversion on the road
to Damascus. Acts ix 1-9. He preached
at Paphos, Philippi, Athens, Ephesus
etc., and was martyred in Rome with
Saint Peter on the same day.
Inferno Canto II:1-42. In the medieval Vision of St Paul he enters Hell. He is
called the Chosen Vessel in Acts ix 15.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant carrying a sword (of the spirit, and of his
martyrdom)
Paradiso Canto XVIII:100-136. He is alive in the living religion.
Paradiso Canto XXI:52-142. He was a
‘Chosen Vessel’. See Acts ix 15.
1339
Paradiso Canto XXIV:52-87. Faith is an intellectual virtue to the Catholic
Church, and Dante here quotes Saint
Paul’s definition in Hebrew xi 1 ‘Faith
is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.’
Paradiso Canto XXVIII:94-139. He
was supposed to have revealed the
Angelic Hierarchies to Dionysius the Aeropagite.
3D]]L&DUOLQRDQG&DPLFFLRQH
Camicion, one of the Pazzi of
Valdarno, killed his kinsman,
Ubertino. Carlino, still living at the
time of the Vision, held the castle of
Piantravigne for the Whites of
Florence against the Blacks of
Florence and Lucca, but was bribed to
surrender it treacherously to the
enemy, causing the deaths of many of
the Bianchi.
1340
Inferno Canto XXXII:40-69. He has a place reserved for him in the Antenora,
in the Ninth Circle, as a traitor against
his country.
3D]]R5LQLHUL
A notorious highwayman of Dante’s
time.
Inferno Canto XII:100-139 He is in the seventh circle.
3HOHXV
The son of Aeacus, and father of
Achilles by Thetis the sea-goddess.
Inferno Canto XXXI:1-45. Peleus’s spear was given to him by Chiron the Centaur. It was cut from an ash on
Mount Pelion. Hephaestus forged its
blade, and Athene polished the shaft.
At Troy Achilles wounded Telephus
with it. He was a king of Mysia and
the son of Hercules and the nymph Auge. Rust from the spear, rubbed on
1341
the wound, cured it. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses XII 112 and XIII 171.
3HQHORSH
The wife of Ulysses.
Inferno Canto XXVI:85-142. She is mentioned.
3HQWKHVLOHD
The Amazon queen, the daughter of
Otrere and Ares, killed by Achilles
when she fought for the Trojans during
the Trojan War. The type of a noble
woman. She had sought refuge at Troy
from the Furies after accidentally
killing her sister Hippolyte.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among the heroes and heroines in
Limbo.
3HUDGHOODRI)ORUHQFH
An ancient Florentine family. See the
1342
Mentioned.
3HULOOXV
He made the bronze bull for Phalaris,
the tyrant of Sicily. Heated by fire
victims were roasted inside it, Perillus
himself being the first victim.
Inferno Canto XXVII:1-30. He is mentioned, indirectly.
3HUVLXV
Persius Flaccus, the Roman satirist
(34-62AD)
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. He is in Limbo.
3HWHU6DLQWWKH$SRVWOH
Inferno Canto I:112-136. Christ entrusted the keys of the Church to
Peter, as the ‘rock’ on which the
Church would be built (Matthew
xvi,18). The Angel at the Gate of
1343
Purgatory holds the keys. Peter died at Rome as a martyr in the persecutions
under Nero. His memorial monument
at the cemetery on the Vatican Hill
was built about AD160-170. The
Bishops of Rome (from Stephen
onwards, bishop AD 254-256), and the
Popes, were his successors.
Inferno Canto XIX:88-133. Dante refers to Christ’s injunction to Peter,
‘Follow me’, see Matthew iv 19, and
John xxi 19.
Purgatorio Canto XXI:34-75. The Angel at the Gate of Purgatory hold
his two keys to Confession on Peter’s
behalf, with instructions to err on the
side of leniency with the truly contrite.
Purgatorio Canto XIII:46-84. The shades repeat the Litany of the Saints.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:55-93. He is Simon Peter, called the Fisherman. See
1344
Mark i 16. (‘I will make you to become fishers of men’)
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:133-154. He
appears in the Divine Pageant.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. He
was present at the Transfiguration, see
Matthew xviii 1-8 when Christ shone like the sun in white raiment, and
Moses and Elias appeared talking with him, and after they were overcome
Christ said ‘Arise, and be not afraid’.
Christ is the apple-tree, in accord with
the Song of Solomon ii 3, ‘As the
apple tree among the trees of the
wood, so is my beloved among the
sons.’
Paradiso Canto XI:118-139. The Church and Papacy is Peter’s ‘boat’.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:100-136. He is alive in the living religion.
Paradiso Canto XXI:52-142. He was Simon Peter the son of Jona, called
1345
Cephas, ‘a stone’ by Christ. See John i 42.
Paradiso Canto XXII:1-99. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXIII:88-139. He holds the keys of the Faith.
Paradiso Canto XXIV:115-154. See John xx 3-6. Though the other disciple
runs more quickly to the tomb of
Christ, it is Peter, according to John,
who enters it before him.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:115-151. He
sits at the right hand of the Virgin.
3HWHU'DPLDQ6DLQW
Saint Peter Damian, of Ravenna, some
time Abbot of the monastery of Santa
Croce di Fonte Avellana in the
Apennines, beneath Monte Catria, near
Gubbio. (Dante is said to have found
refuge there after the death of
Henry VII.) His parents’ poverty lead to him being exposed as an infant, but
1346
he was rescued and educated by his brother Damian, taking the name
Damiani, ‘Damian’s Peter’, He was
made Cardinal Bishop of Ostia in
1058, against his will, by Pope
Stephen IX. He styled himself Peter
the Sinner, 3HWUXV SHFFDWRU, and
visited the monastery of Pomposa on
an island at the mouth of the Po, near
Commachio. He was an ardent
reformer of Church discipline and one
of the chief ecclesiastical writers of the
eleventh century. He was a friend and
ally of Hildebrand afterwards Saint
Gregory VII. He died at Faenza in
1072.
Paradiso Canto XXI:52-142. He is in the seventh sphere.
3HWHURI6SDLQVHH 3RSH-RKQ;;,
1347
Peter (c1100-1160) an Augustinian,
known as ‘the Master of the
6HQWHQFHV’ wrote his four books on
God, the Creation, Refdemption, and
the Sacraments and Last Things, as the
chief summary of medieval theology
before Aquinas, who commented on it.
In the prologue he speaks of himself as
‘desiring with the poor widow (Luke
xxi 1-4) to cast something out of our
poverty into the treasury of the Lord.’
Paradiso Canto X:100-129. He is in the fourth sphere of Prudence.
3HWHU,,,.LQJRI$UDJRQ
Pere III (1276-1285), took Sicily from
Charles I of Anjou after the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. He had married
Manfred’s daughter Costanze. He and Charles both died in 1285. He was
succeeded by his son Alfonso III who died in 1291. Aragon and Sicily were
1348
ruled by his younger sons, James and
Frederick at the time of the Vision.
Dante regards them as degenerates, but
Manfred calls them the honour of
Aragon and Sicily in Purgatorio III.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is one of the negligent rulers.
3HWWLJQDQR3LHUR
A Franciscan friar (and comb-seller)
from Chianti who settled in Siena,
where he died in 1289. He was
renowned for his piety, and venerated
as a saint, being recognised officially
in 1328.
Purgatorio Canto XIII:85-154. He
prayed for Sapia.
3KDHGUD
The daughter of Pasiphae and Minos,
sister of Ariadne. She married
Theseus, but loved Hippolytus her stepson. Repulsed by him she accused
1349
him to his father, and so brought about his death. See Racine’s 3KDHGUD. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses XV 500 et seq.
Paradiso Canto XVII:1-99. She is mentioned as being one who accused
another of a crime, which they
themselves were guilty of.
3KDsWRQ3KDsWKRQ
Inferno Canto XVII:79-136. The son of Phoebus Apollo and Clymene, the wife of the Ethiopian king Merops,
and the grandson of Tethys. He asked
Phoebus for proof of his paternity,
and, being granted a wish, requested to
drive the chariot of the sun. He could
not control it, and was killed by
Jupiter’s thunderbolt to prevent the
earth being destroyed. He was buried,
by the Naiads, on the banks of the
River Po. The Milky Way was
supposed by the Pythagoreans to be
the sign of his journey, still visible in
1350
the heavens. (See Dante’s &RQYLYLR ii) See Ovid’s Metamorphoses I 751, and
II passim.
Purgatorio Canto IV:52-87. He is mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto XXIX:106-132. His death is mentioned, when Jupiter for the good of all destroyed the one.
Paradiso Canto XVII:1-99. He asked his mother to tell him the truth about
his paternity.
Paradiso Canto XXXI:94-142. He is mentioned.
3KLOLS,,,.LQJRI)UDQFH
Philip the Bold (1270-1285) attempted
to seize the throne of Peter III of Aragon on behalf of his son
Charles de Valois, with the connivance of Pope Martin IV. He was defeated
by Roger di Loria, Peter’s admiral at
Gerona, and died at Perpignan. His son
was Philip IV.
1351
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is one of the negligent rulers.
3KLOLS,9WKH)DLU.LQJRI)UDQFH
King of France (1285-1314), son of
Philip III, he strengthened the monarchy, and dissolved the Knights
Templars in 1307. He supported the
Avignon Papacy, and won
Champagne, Flanders and other
territories for the Crown. He married
Joan, the daughter of Henry I of
Navarre, ‘the Fat’.
See
and
Inferno Canto VI:64-93 for an indirect reference.
Inferno Canto XIX:31-87He reputedly accepted a bribe from Bertrand de
Goth, to make him Pope (as
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is mentioned, adversely.
1352
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. Dante calls him the new Pilate, because he
delivered Boniface to his enemies the Colonnesi, as Pilate delivered Christ to the Council of the Jews. He caused the
Templars to be persecuted from 1307,
greedy, it was said, for their immense
wealth.
debased the coinage by two-thirds in
1302 to defray the cost of his Flemish
campaign. He is held as an example of
poor kingship.
3KOHJ\DV
Avenged his daughter Coronis, raped
by Apollo, by burning down the god’s temple at Delphi for which he was
condemned to Tartarus.
In the Aeneid vi 618-620 he issues a
warning against scorning the gods.
1353
Inferno Canto VIII:1-30. He is the ferryman of the marsh in the Fifth
Circle.
3KROXV
A centaur who entertained Hercules
and was accidentally killed by one of
his arrows. He was present at the battle
of the Lapiths and Centaurs.
Inferno Canto XII:49-99. He is in the seventh circle.
3KRWLQXV
Inferno Canto XI:1-66. Deacon of Thessalonica. See Anastasius.
3K\OOLV
The daughter of the Thracian King
Sithon (living near Mount Rhodope in
Thrace) who was loved by
Demophoön, King of Melos,the son of
Theseus and Phaedra. He failed to keep his promise to return to her, and
1354
when he did eventually return to find her she had committed suicide, but had
been transformed into an almond tree
by Athene. (See Burne-Jones painting
‘The Tree of Forgiveness’, Lever Art
Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside,
England) See Ovid’s Heroides.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. She is mentioned.
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The traditional story is that La Pia
belonged to the Tolomei of Siena, and
married Nello d’Inghiramo dei
Pannocchiesci, the Podestà of Volterra in 1277, of Lucca in 1314, the captain
of the Tuscan Guelphs in 1284 and
still alive in 1322. He put her to death
at the Castello della Pietra, in the
marshes of the Sienese Maremma, in
1295, throwing her from a window, or
alternatively she died of disease in that
unhealthy place. He was said to be
1355
jealous, or to want rid of her in order to marry the Countess Margherita
degh Aldobrandeschi, the widow of
Guy de Montfort. The identification of La Pia may well be wrong, but the
story survives.
Purgatorio Canto V:130-136. She is with the late repentants who died of
violence.
(See D. G. Rossetti’s Oil painting – La
Pia de’ Tolomei – University of
Kansas.) In La Pia’s words to Dante
there is an echo of the lines on Virgil’s
tomb, at Naples, ‘0$178$ 0(
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An ancient Florentine family. See the
1356
Mentioned. Their arms barred with
ermine=vair.
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Pontius Pilate the Governor of Judea,
before whom Christ was arraigned.
See Matthew xxvii 11.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. He is mentioned.
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3LVLVWUDWXV
Purgatorio Canto XV:82-145. The lord of Athens, who gave this answer,
when urged by his wife to put to death
a young man, who had kissed their
daughter in public. ‘6L HRV TXL QRV
DPDQWLQWHUILFLPXVTXLGKLVIDFLHPXV
TXLEXV RGLR VXPXV"’ (Valerius
Maximus) The right to name the city
of Athens was disputed by Pallas
1357
(Minerva) and Poseidon
(Neptune). See Ovid’s Metamorphoses
VI 70.
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Saint Pius I, Pope (140-155AD).
Paradiso Canto XXVII:1-66. He died for the faith.
3ODWR
The Greek Philosopher, 428/7?-
348/7BC, born at Athens of a
distinguished family. His father was
named Ariston, his mother Perictione
was the sister of Charmides and niece
of Critias who both figured in the
Oligarchy of 404/3. He was a follower
of Socrates, and developed the search for universals with his concept of the
Ideas, or the Doctrine of Forms. He
made massive contributions to the
theory of knowledge, moral theory and
politics (The Republic).
1358
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the philosophers in Limbo.
Purgatorio Canto III:1-45. The pagan philosophers cannot hope to
understand the ‘ZK\¶ of God’s works,
and are condemned to an unsatisfied
desire for supreme knowledge.
(Aquinas: ‘the one demonstrates by means of the cause and is called
SURSWHUTXLG.... the other by means of
the effect and is called the
demonstration TXLD.)
Purgatorio Canto IV:1-18. Dante gives a refutation of the doctrine of the
multiplicity of souls, ascribed to Plato
by Thomas Aquinas. If souls were plural, we would not become so
absorbed as to neglect the passage of
time.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. Dante refers to Plato’s Timaeus, available to him in
Chalcidius’s Latin paraphrase. The
doctrine he repeats, as understood by
1359
Dante, gives excessive power to the stars, fatal to freewill.
3ODXWXV
The Roman playwright and poet (254-
184BC). His plays were adapted from
Menander and other Greek writers.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. He is in Limbo.
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Pluto was the son of Saturn and the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and
was assigned the rule of the
Underworld. Dante merges him with
Plutus, god of the riches dug from the
ground, and therefore the source of the
sin of avarice, and the ‘JUHDWHQHP\¶.
Inferno Canto VI:94-115. Dante and Virgil find him at the start of the
descent to the Fourth Circle of Hell.
Inferno Canto VII:1-39. He mutter words in an unknown language, that
1360
Virgil understands, and collapses at Virgil’s reply.
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The lord of Ravenna, father of
Francesca da Rimini, and grandfather of Guido Novello, who employed
Dante on various missions (See Dante:
Epistolae viii) and may have assisted
him to find a last refuge in Ravenna,
where Dante’s tomb is sited. The
family arms were an eagle, half argent,
on an azure field, half gules on field
or.
Inferno Canto XXVII:31-57. He ruled Ravenna, and Cervia, twelve miles
south, in 1300.
3RO\FOHWXV
The Greek sculptor (c452-412BC),
mentioned by Aristotle and others, and
1361
of the same generation as Pheidias. He made the gold and ivory statue of
Hera, in the Heraion near Mycenae,
famous for its grandeur and beauty,
and it was engraved in miniature on
the coins of Argos. See Pausanias II
xvii 3.
Purgatorio Canto X:1-45. He is mentioned.
3RO\GRUXV
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. The son of
Priam and Hecuba, sent by Priam to the court of Polymestor of Thrace, and done to death by Polymestor, Priam’s
son-in-law. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses XIII 432 et seq. and
Virgil’s Aseneid iii 49.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
1362
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. The son-in law of Priam and Hecuba, who sent their son Polydorus to his court in Thrace. He murdered Polydorus and
threw his body into the sea to be found
subsequently by Hecuba. See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses XIII 430 et seq.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
3RO\QLFHV
The son of Oedipus and Jocasta, and brother of Eteocles. They fought over the succession, in the war of the Seven
against Thebes. Both brothers were
killed and, according to Statius in the Thebaid xii 429 et seq. the flames of
their funeral pyre itself were divided.
Inferno Canto XXVI:43-84. They are mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:55-93. They are indirectly mentioned.
1363
Inferno Canto V:52-72. The Trojan princess, daughter of Priam and
Hecuba. According to Ovid
(Metamorphoses XIII 448) she is
slaughtered at Achilles’s tomb after the fall of Troy, but according to later
versions of the myths his love for her
brought about his death, when he was
killed by Paris in a temple where he had gone to marry her, after being
promised her hand if he would join
forces with the Trojans.
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. She is mentioned.
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Consul, General, Julius Caesar’s sonin-law having married Julia. Defeated by Caesar in the Civil War, ended by
the battle of Pharsalus in Thessaly.
1364
Fled to Alexandria. Murdered by
Ptolemy XIII.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
3RPSHLXV6H[WXV
The son of Pompey the Great (died
35BC). He was defeated by
Julius Caesar at Munda in 45BC and by Octavian’s (Augustus’s) admiral Agrippa at Mylae and Naulochus off
Sicily in 36BC. Lucan gives him a
very bad press.
Inferno Canto XII:100-139. He is in the seventh circle.
3UDWD*XLGRGD
A native of Ravenna. He died c1245.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned.
1365
Cardinal Nicholas of Prato was sent to
Florence by Pope Benedict XI in early
1304 to attempt a reconciliation
between the warring factions. He
failed, and laid the city under an
interdict, excommunicating several
citizens. Several local disasters at the
time, such as a fire caused by a
factional fight, destroying many
houses, and a bridge collapse during a
May day festival (the wooden Ponte
Carraia) were attributed to divine
disapproval.
Inferno Canto XXVI:1-42. He is mentioned.
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An ancient Florentine family. See the
Mentioned.
1366
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. King of Troy, during the Trojan War. The son
of Laomedon, and husband of Hecuba.
He was killed by Pyrrhus, at the fall of Troy.
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A Latin grammarian of the early sixth
century AD.
Inferno Canto XV:100-124. He is in Hell for sodomy.
3URFQHDQG3KLORPHOD
The daughter of Pandion, wife of
Tereus, mother of Itys, and sister of
Philomela. Her sister is raped and
mutilated by Tereus, and the two
sisters together conspire to kill the son,
Itys, and serve his flesh to Tereus at a
banquet. In Latin sources (Virgil’s
Georgics etc) she is changed into the
swallow, Philomela into the
1367
nightingale, and Tereus into the hoopoe. See also Ovid’s
Metamorphoses VI 428 et seq. In
Greek sources of the myth, Procne is
the nightingale and Philomela the
swallow. Ovid does not clarify the
point. Dante hints at the Greek
sources, Procne being the more
impious of the two sisters.
Purgatorio Canto IX:1-33. The swallow sings its sad songs in memory
of the pain.
Purgatorio Canto XVII:1-39. The nightingale is mentioned in the context
of impiety, suggesting Procne. Procne
killed Itys, though Philomela
immediately slit his throat, so that both
committed an impiety, but Procne
more so, since it was her own child.
3URVHUSLQH3HUVHSKRQH.RUH
The daughter of Demeter(Ceres),
seized by Pluto(Dis) on the plain of 1368
searched for her. Because Persephone
had eaten food in Hades, pomegranate
seeds, she was allowed to return to
earth for only six months of the year,
and spent the other six in Hell. The
vegetation rituals of Ceres-Demeter
and Persephone formed the essence of
the secret mysteries at Eleusis.
Persephone is one of the incarnations
of the triple moon-goddess. (See
Skelton: ‘Diana in the leaves green,
Luna who so bright doth sheen,
Persephone in Hell.’) See Ovid’s
Metamorphoses V 376-564.
Inferno Canto X:73-93. Farinata
mentions her moon-incarnation.
Purgatorio Canto XXVIII:1-51. Dante, seeing Matilda, recalls her.
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1369
Claudius Ptolemaeus, fl.127-51 AD,
codified astronomical knowledge in
his work the $OPDJHVW He was the
authority throughout the Middle Ages.
His earth-centred theory was
subsequently overturned by the
heliocentric theory of Copernicus.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among the group of wise men in
Limbo.
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Ptolemy XII of Egypt, overthrown by
Caesar in 47BC.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
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King of Tyre, brother of Dido, who murdered her husband, their uncle,
Sychaeus, out of greed for gold. See Virgil’s Aeneid i 350.
1370
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
3\UDPXV
A Babylonian, who in Ovid’s story
(Metamorphoses IV 55-166) believes
that a lion has killed his lover Thisbe
when he reaches their meeting place,
He kills himself, and then Thisbe,
finding him, kills herself also. The
mulberry tree under which they were
to meet has red fruit thereafter, its
leaves and roots being soaked with his
blood. The story is one of true love,
and Shakespeare used it as a basis for
the ending of Romeo and Juliet,
despite his unfortunate ridiculing of
the story in The Midsummer Night’s
Dream.
Purgatorio Canto XXVII:1-45. The story is mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto XXXIII:58-102. He
is mentioned.
1371
King of Epirus (318-272BC) who
campaigned against the Carthaginians
in Sicily, and against the Romans (his
costly victory at Asculum led to the
expression ‘a Pyrrhic victory’) was
defeated by the Romans under Curius
Dentatus at Beneventum in 275BC.
Inferno Canto XII:100-139. He is in the
seventh
circle,
unless
Pyrrhus the son of Achilles is intended.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
3\UUKXVVRQRI$FKLOOHV
Neoptolemus, called Pyrrhus, who
killed Priam and sacrificed Polyxena
on Achilles’s grave. Virgil stresses his cruelty in Aeneid ii 469.
Inferno Canto XII:100-139. He is placed in the seventh circle unless the
1372
is
to
5DEDQXV0DXUXV
Bishop of Mayence (c766-856)
compiled a cyclopaedia 'H 8QLYHUVR
in twenty-two books, and was in
favour of orthodoxy to the point of
unwitting heresy. He was a
Benedictine and pupil of Alcuin. He
wrote voluminously, summarising
ninth century learning.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
5DFKHO
The wife of Jacob in the Bible (Genesis 29), for whom he served
Laban her father seven years, and the
sister of Leah. She is for Dante the type of Contemplation. See Genesis
xxix and xxx. Her New Testament
1373
equivalent is Mary the sister of Martha. See Luke x 38-42.
Inferno Canto II:94-120. Beatrice is sitting with her. (Divine Philosophy
sits with Contemplation)
Inferno Canto IV:1-63. Christ takes her spirit from Limbo into Paradise.
Purgatorio Canto XXVII:94-114. She is mentioned in Dante’s dream.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. She sits with Beatrice in Heaven, below the
Virgin, in the third rank. See above.
5DKDE
The prostitute of Jericho who helped
Joshua’s spies. They in turn swore to save her and her family (‘our life for
yours’). She was told to fasten a
scarlet thread to her window so that
she and her family could be identified
at the taking of the city. She was
converted to the Israelite cause, and
became a symbol of the Church, the
1374
scarlet cord signifying the blood of Christ, and the two spies the two
Testaments. See Joshua ii and vi 23-
25.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. She is in the third sphere, of Venus.
5DSKDHOWKH$UFKDQJHO
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He is shown with human form though beyond the
human. He helped Tobias to cure his
father Tobit’s blindness.
See
Apocrypha, Book of Tobit. His name
means ‘God heals’. He is traditionally
identified with the Angel who stirred
the waters of the pool of Bethesda,
John v 1-15.
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An ancient Florentine family. See the
1375
Mentioned.
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The wife of Isaac. An ancestress of
Christ. See Genesis.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. She is seated in Heaven, below the Virgin.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:37-84. Dante refers to Genesis xxv 22-27 where
Jacob and Esau struggle in her womb, representing ‘two nations, and two
manner of people’. Jacob was a tent-
dweller and Esau a hunter, a man of
the field, representing the ancient
struggle between the raw and the
cooked, civilisation and the wild, and
‘the elder shall serve the younger’, the
wild shall serve the civilised, at the
foundation of Jewish and Christian
culture.
1376
The ten tribes revolted against
Rehoboam, king of Israel, because he
refused to lighten their taxes. He fled
to Jerusalem. See First Kings xii 1-18.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. He is depicted on the roadway.
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A converted Saracen, the mythical
brother-in-law of William of Orange