In the last canto, Dante and Virgil had made to the seventh bolgia in the eighth circle of Hell. In the 8th circle of Hell Fraudsters are punished and it is called Malebolge (evil ditches, pouches, ravines, moats). There are ten bolgia (ditches) in which different types of Fraud are punished. In the 7th bolgia, thieves are being punished. It is filled with snakes and shades who run around trying to hide from the snakes but it’s useless. Once the snakes take hold they cover them and then bite them. Once bitten, the shade immediately burns up and once the ashes hit the ground, they reconstitute back into the man/woman. At the end of the last canto, Dante is able to ask one, who has just gone through the metamorphoses, who he is and what is the reason he is in the 7th bolgia? The man’s name was Vanni Fucci and he had stolen sacred treasure from a chapel cathedral in Pistoia. An innocent man was captured but, fortunately, they found out he was innocent without any help from the real thief, Vanni, who had fled Pistoia. Once he was determined to be the thief, he revealed his accomplice and the man was executed but Vanni was never caught. He is unrepentant and still full of rage and being asked to confess his crime, he turns his rage on Dante. He prophesies the political events that end in Dante’s exile and tells Dante he told him that to hurt him.
In the 7th bolgia the metamorphoses of the sinners is featured. As I said in the Bible study of the previous canto, a Christian goes through a metamorphoses too. But only once. We are born with a body, the flesh, and a soul, the mind and personhood of an individual. We are a two part being. But God made us in His image and He is the Godhead, three in one. When Adam and Eve were created, God created them as three part beings: body, mind (or soul) and spirit. Their spirit was what was in constant contact with God. But when they sinned their spirit died and their body would eventually follow it in death. When someone repents and asks Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior, their spirit is born. We call it being born again. We are once more a three part being. When we die, our body is consigned to the grave. Our spirit and soul go to Paradise to be with the Lord until He resurrects our bodies. Our bodies will be resurrected whole, perfect, immortal and will rejoin our spirit and soul. We will be complete in Him and never more threatened by sin, sickness or death. Our metamorphoses will be complete. We are born in the flesh with a soul. We are born again when we are saved because our spirit is born. We will be united in perfection and completeness in the end.
Jesus Christ made all this possible. He was born a man, a sinless man who never fell to the temptations to sin. He died a sinless man on the cross. He was resurrected, His human body perfect and immortal. He ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father with the scars of what He did for us still showing on His body. They sent the Holy Spirit down to work to bring humans to salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Jesus went through His own metamorphoses. He experienced what we experience. He was in human form and He knows what it’s like to die. But He knows what it’s like to be resurrected too! Praise God! He didn’t stay in that grave! He is alive forevermore! He was the first human being to be metamorphosed in such a way. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” but then whatever dies is resurrected. For Christians, it’s a resurrection to completeness, wholeness, sinlessness, utter freedom and trust in God. Forever. For those who reject Jesus Christ, it is to an eternity of judgment and punishment in Hell and the Lake of Fire.
This bolgia shows a perversion of the death, resurrection and new life. The sting of satan causes them to burst into flames, fall into ashes and then resurrected into the same over and over again for eternity.
It was after such a horrible metamorphoses that Vanni Fucci is named. He tells Dante and Virgil his name. Dante has to ask him his crime. He doesn’t want to tell. He doesn’t want to confess his shame and his face turns red. But he does. He says he chose a life of bestiality and it pleased him to live like that. He was even nicknamed “The Beast”. It enrages him to have to confess.
The thief held up his hands when he was through,
And “God,” he cried, making the fig with both –
“Take these; I aim them squarely at you!”
The serpents were my friends from that time forth,
For then one coiled itself about his neck
As if to say, “That’s all then, from your mouth,”
And another went around his arms to snake
Them tight and cinch itself in front, so tied
They couldn’t budge enough to gesture. Alack,
Pistoia, Pistoia! – Why haven’t you decreed
Your own incineration, so that you dwell
On earth no more, since you surpass your seed
In evildoing? In all the circles of Hell
I saw no spirit so arrogant to God,
Not even him who fell from the Theban wall.
“Making the fig” is a vulgar Italian gesture of copulation basically like “giving the finger” is for us. This unrepentant sinner is still full of misplaced anger and deflecting rage onto others. He had to confess to Dante his crime but he does it without repentance. Because of this, Dante sees the serpents as agents of God’s judgment and therefore doing the right thing in inflicting such horror on the sinners. But the horror of this circle in not complete yet.
Dante said he “saw no spirit so arrogant to God, not even him who fell from the Theban wall.” This is a reference to Capaneus in Canto 14 where blasphemers are punished in the third circle of Hell. Capaneus was one of the kings who besieged Thebes. On the walls of Thebes he was boasting and yelling against Jupiter but he was killed by one bolt of lightening sent by the one whom he dared. Capaneus’ rantings against divine power were so arrogant but Vanni Fucci is even worse. By his own admission, Vanni was a violent, murderous man and a thief. He is also revealed to be a blasphemer as well.
And next I saw a centaur full of rage:
“Where is he? Where is the bitter one?” he cried
As he charged up. I think more snakes than lodge
In Maremma’s swamp were riding on his croup,
Swarming along his back up to the edge
Of our human form. He bore behind his nape,
Along the shoulders, a dragon with wings spread wide:
If any blocked the path, it burned them up.
“This centaur’s name is Cacus,” my master said,
“Who underneath the stones of Aventine
Many a time has made a lake of blood.
He doesn’t walk the same road as his clan
Because by theft and fraud he tried to get
The splendid herd that lay near him – a sin
That ended his crooked habits; he died for it.
When Hercules’s club rained onto his head
Some hundred blows, he lived to feel ten hit.”
While he was saying this, the centaur sped
Beyond us,
Here is a Centaur named Cacus. We saw Centaurs in in the first ring of the seventh circle (Canto 12) that punished the violent against others, theirselves and in their possessions. But there they were agents of punishment. They followed the River of Blood in which those who were violent against others were punished. Any who tried to rise out of the River of Blood became targets for the Centaurs’ bow and arrows. Here, Cacus in both punished in the 8th circle of hell in the 7th bolgia and guards it. Here is his story:
In Roman mythology, Cacus was a fire-breathing giant and the son of Vulcan. Cacus lived in a cave in Italy on the future site of Rome. To the horror of nearby inhabitants, Cacus lived on human flesh and would nail the heads of victims to the doors of his cave. Hercules stopped to pasture the cattle he had stolen from Geryon near Cacus’ lair. As Hercules slept, the monster took a liking to the cattle and slyly stole eight of them – four bulls and four cows – by dragging them by their tails, so as to leave a trail in the wrong direction. When Hercules awoke and made to leave, the remaining herd made plaintive noises towards the cave, and a single cow lowed in reply. Angered, Hercules stormed towards the cave. A terrified Cacus blocked the entrance with a vast, immoveable boulder (though some incarnations have Hercules himself block the entrance) forcing Hercules to tear at the top of the mountain to reach his adversary. Cacus attacked Hercules by spewing fire and smoke, while Hercules responded with tree branches and rocks the size of millstones. Eventually losing patience, Hercules leapt into the cave, aiming for the area where the smoke was heaviest. Hercules grabbed Cacus and strangled the monster. In the Roman tradition, Hercules founded an altar after he killed Cacus to commemorate his killing of Cacus. Cacus is depicted as a Centaur with a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders and snakes covering his equine back. He guards over the thieves in the Thieves section of Hell’s Circle of Fraud. – Wikipedia
What do we discover? He is angry (‘pien di rabbia‘), as was that voice (ad ira mosso, and not ad ire mosso); he cries out in perverse imitation of God’s voice in the Garden in the Bible (Genesis 3:9), asking hiding Adam, ‘Where are you?’. (See the note to Inf. XXIV.91-96.) Cacus is in pursuit of Vanni Fucci, ‘unripe’ (acerbo) because of his sin. Later in the poem Satan is also portrayed as having fallen from heaven ‘unripe’ (acerbo) in his sinfulness (Inf. XIX.48), while Adam, beginning his life innocent, without sin, is referred to as having been created by God ‘ripe’ (maturo) in the Garden (Inf. XXVI.91). Thus, in this ‘replay’ of the primal scene of theft in the Garden, Vanni takes on the role of Adam after the fall, having moved from ripeness to unripeness, hiding from his just maker, while Cacus plays the unlikely role of the vengeful God in pursuit of his fallen child (see the note to Inferno XXV.19-33). For a much different reading, see Tobias Leuker, “L’acerbità di Vanni Fucci. Sul contrapasso del Caco dantesco,” Letteratura italiana antica 4 (2003), pp. 401-5. Leuker argues that Cacus is actually in search of friendship and has been denied it by Vanni, who is acerbo in the sense that he is retroso, difficult or stand-offish; as a result, Cacus is furious with him. – Robert Hollander
Maremma is a boggy region of Tuscany.
Aventine one of the seven hills of pre-civilized Rome.
the centaur sped
Beyond us, and three new spirits appeared below;
They went unnoticed by me or by my guide
Until they shouted to us, “Who are you?”
At which we ceased our talk and turned to them.
I did not know them, but as people do
When chance disposes, one had some cause to name
Another – “Where have we left Cianfa?” he said.
To be sure my leader heard, I signaled him
To stay alert, with a finger that I laid
From chin to nose. Reader, if you are slow
To credit what I tell you next, it should
Be little wonder, for I who saw it know
That I myself can hardly acknowledge it:
While I was staring at the sinners below
A serpent darted forward that had six feet,
And facing one of the three it fastened on him
All over – with the middle feet it got
A grip upon the belly, with each fore-limb
It clasped an arm; its fangs gripped both his cheeks;
It spread its hind feet out to do the same
To both his thighs, extending its tail to flex
Between them upward through the loins behind,
No ivy growing in a tree’s bark sticks
As firmly as the horrid beast entwined
Its limbs around the other. Then, as if made
Out of hot wax, they clung and made a bond
And mixed their colors; and neither could be construed
As what it was at first-so, as the track
Of flame moves over paper, there is a shade
That moves before it that is not yet black,
And the white dies away. The other two
Were looking on, and cried, “Ah me, now look
At how you change, Agnello! – already you
Are neither two nor one.” Now the two heads
Had become one; we watched the two shapes grow
Into one face, where both were lost. The sides
Grew two arms, fused from lengths that had been four;
Thighs, legs, chest, belly merged; and in their steads
Grew members that were never seen before.
All of the former features were blotted out.
A perverse shape, with both not what they were,
Yet neither – such, its pace deliberate,
It moved away. The way a lizard can dash
Under the dog day’s scourge, darting out
Between the hedges so that it seems a flash
Of lightning if it spurts across the road,
So did a fiery little serpent rush
Toward the bellies of the two who stayed;
Peppercorn black and livid, it struck out,
Transfixing one in the place where we are fed
When life begins – then fell before his feet,
Outstretched. The pierced one gazed at it and stood
Not speaking, only yawning as if a fit
Of sleep or fever had taken him. He eyed
The serpent, the serpent him. From this one’s wound
And that one’s mouth smoke violently flowed,
And their smoke met. Let Lucan now attend
In silence, who had told the wretched fates
Of nasidius and Sabellus – till he has learned
What I will let fly next. And Ovid, who writes
Of cadmus and Arethusa, let him be still –
For though he in his poet-craft transmutes
One to a serpent, and makes the other spill
Transformed into a fountain. I envy him not;
He never transformed two individual
Front-to-front natures so both forms as they met
Were ready to exchange their substance. The twain
Reacted mutually: the reptile split
Its tail to make a fork; the wounded one
Conjoined his feet. The legs and thighs were pressed
So tight no mark of juncture could be seen;
The split tail took the shape the other lost,
Its skin grew softer, and the other’s hard.
I saw the arms draw inward to be encased
Inside the armpits; the animal’s feet appeared
To lengthen as the other’s arms grew less.
The hind paws, twisting together like a cord,
Became the member man conceals. From his,
The wretch had grown two feet. While the smoke veils
Each on with colors that are new, and grows
Hair here and strips it there, the one shape falls
And one comes upright. But neither turned aside
The unholy lights that stared above the muzzles
They each were changing: the one who newly stood
Drew his in toward his temples, and from the spare
Matter from that, ears issued from the head,
Behind smooth cheeks; what didn’t course to an ear
But was retained became the face’s nose,
And fleshed the lips to the thickness they should bear.
He that lay prone propelled his nose and face
Forward, and shrank his ears back into the head
As a snail does it’s horns. The tongue that was
Whole and prepared for speech was split instead –
And in the other the forked tongue formed one piece:
And the smoke ceased. The soul that had been made
A beast fled down the valley with a hiss;
The other, speaking now, spat after it,
Turned his new shoulders on it to address
The third, and said: “I’ll have Buoso trot
On all fours down this road, as I have done!”
And so I saw that seventh deadweight transmute
And mutate – and may its strangeness excuse my pen,
If it has tangled things. And though my eyes
Were somewhat in confusion at the scene,
My mind somewhat bewildered, yet none of these
Could flee to hide himself so secretly
That I could not distinguish well the face
Of Pucci Sciancato, who of the three
Companions that we first took notice of
Alone was not transformed; the other was he
Whose death, Gaville, you have good cause to grieve.
Another hideous metamorphous happens when Dante and Virgil see three men. The first metamorphosis we saw was Vanni Fucci and symbolized the perversion of the basic Christian mystery of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection of the saints (believers) that occur by accepting Jesus Christ as Savior.
Dante does not name these three men until AFTER the metamorphosis occurs. The first man is attacked by a 6 legged serpent. It grabs him so tight and it’s tail rapes the man.
A serpent darted forward that had six feet,
And facing one of the three it fastened on him
All over – with the middle feet it got
A grip upon the belly, with each fore-limb
It clasped an arm; its fangs gripped both his cheeks;
It spread its hind feet out to do the same
To both his thighs, extending its tail to flex
Between them upward through the loins behind,
No ivy growing in a tree’s bark sticks
As firmly as the horrid beast entwined
Its limbs around the other. Then, as if made
Out of hot wax, they clung and made a bond
And mixed their colors.
The first of the five Florentines referred to in the canto, is Cianfa Donati of the Black Guelph Donati family. The large Donati family was called Malefami (evil family). He was an active Italian politician in Florence in the 13th century. In 1282 Cianfa Donato was an advisor to the People’s Captain and is also quoted in a document from 1283. In 1289 it is known that he was already dead. The three shades are asking, “What happened to Cianfa?” when Agnello is attacked by a 6 legged serpent who is Cianfa.
The first commentators identified Agnello with the character of the noble Brunelleschi family, a Ghibelline family. He used disguises in his thievery. The two merge together.
This male-on-male rape is meant to be demeaning. It’s a perversion of heterosex between a married couple where God says “the two shall become one”.
Genesis 2:24 (BSB) For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Matthew 19:4-6 (NRSV, Jesus speaking) 4 He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Marriage was defined by God before Adam and Eve sinned. Many Protestants consider marriage to be a sacred institution or “holy ordinance” of God. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians consider marriage a holy sacrament or sacred mystery. Marriage is a sacrament because it was a symbol used by Paul to express Christ’s love of the Church. A good marriage is to be a teaching device about our relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus emphasized marriage is God-made between a male and female, a lifelong commitment, monogamous. Jesus used the image of marriage and the family to teach the basics about the Kingdom of God. Jesus said the only reason for divorce was porneio which is sexual immorality, adultery, unfaithfulness, any deviant sexual perversions including homosexuality. (Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:19; Mark 10:11; Luke 16:18; 1 Corinthians 7:10–11). Some hold that marriage vows are unbreakable, so that even in the distressing circumstances in which a couple separates, they are still married from God’s point of view. You can live separately if things are that bad, but you would consider yourself still married, not marrying someone else or having physical intimacy with someone else because that would be adultery. God’s Will is that marriage is a blessed union of two people who love each other and who support, help and protect each other. They are to be helpmates to each other. It is to be a strong bond of love and commitment. They promise before God and witnesses that they will stay together through the best and the worst times – “through sickness and health, though richer or poorer, til death do us part”. “Let no man put asunder”. If your spouse is not doing their part and things get to the point it’s dangerous to stay together, separation can be the choice. It should be the last choice, but you can separate. Divorce is only for those who have a spouse who has been sexually unfaithful. Separation means you still care about your spouse, you are praying for them (supporting them in prayer), you are remaining faithful to your vows, and you work on forgiving and believing God for your spouse. You may, or may not, re-unite in the same house. Keep yourself cleansed of sin and let God take care of your spouse. If the spouse has been sexually unfaithful, you are released from the vows and can divorce your spouse and remarry. But separation and divorce were not God’s intent. It is a failure that mars what God intended marriage to be. Due to sin in one or both spouses, the marriage failure is not God’s design. God’s desire is a loving relationship with respect and honor for each other that grows stronger as the two lives entwine and become one. Sexual union is only the beginning of the two becoming one. I’ve been married 43 years (in 2020) and I can tell the young people, as you grow old together you become more and more one. That oneness is worth the work it takes to stay together (as long as it’s not damaging, dangerous and dysfunctional). It’s hard work for two human beings to stay together. We are naturally prideful, selfish and angry when we don’t get our way. But as we learn to submit to this, give in on that, compromise here and share there, we begin to blend. As children, we should have learned some life lessons about sharing with others, learning compromise, living with someone else (parents and siblings). But today, a lot of kids don’t learn it. Families are smaller and parents who can afford to, have larger homes. A child has his own room, his own bed, his own bathroom, his own clothes, TV, cell phone, car. etc. They never learn to share. They never learn to cooperate and work as a team. They never learn how to work things out. They never learn to humble themselves and apologize because Mom and Dad never made them. Mom and Dad think their child does no wrong so it’s someone else’s fault. These “children” go into a marriage without the skills it takes to become one with another person. They are stubborn, selfish, have unrealistic expectations and cannot, or will not, give in. They think this loving feeling will last forever without them ever having to give an inch. The other partner in the marriage is supposed to do everything right and according to what you want. They are supposed to somehow anticipate your every need, desire and do whatever you want them to do. This is unrealistic. It’s impossible. They can’t read your ever-changing mind and keep up with you. Besides, they aren’t a doormat, they are a human being with their own desires and problems. If we learned these lessons when we are young, it’s easier when you get married. I wish parents understood how they may be handicapping their children’s future relationships by not requiring children to learn how to share, cooperate, work together, give and take, give mutual respect (not letting them call each other names and smacking each other around), and how to humble themselves when need be and do things they may not want to do but that need to be done. These are essential to a marriage and parent/child relationships but are sadly lacking in training that goes on in the home.
‘the unnatural figure appeared both, yet neither of the two,’ i.e. the likeness both of the man and of the serpent was there, yet it was not the real likeness of either of them. Dante here had in his mind Ovid’s description of the formation of Hermaphroditus, where it is said (Met. iv. 378, 379), ‘Nec duo sunt et forma duplex, nec femina dici Nec puer ut possint; neutrumque et utrumque videntur‘: see Moore, Studies, i. p. 213. – Rev. H.W. Tozer
The first metamorphosis we saw was Vanni Fucci and symbolized the perversion of the basic Christian mystery of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection of the saints (believers) that occur by accepting Jesus Christ as Savior. The second metamorphosis is a perversion of heterosex between a married couple where God says “the two shall become one”. But it also perverts the idea of love. Where two people are in love and become one, this homosexual rape is the opposite. It’s done in hate. And, lastly, it may be a perversion of Jesus who was both God and Man. The two became one in the incarnation of Jesus Christ on earth. He was fully man and fully God. He came, in love, to set man free from sin and re-establish man’s relationship with God. This metamorphosis in Hell is a perversion of two becoming one and the two merge to become no one, “neither two nor one”.
- Sexual Unity: in malo perversion of copulation
- Psychological Unity: in malo perversion of love
- Metaphysical Unity: in malo perversion of Christ’s Incarnation – DigitalDante.columbia.edu
In the third metamorphosis, we see a snake attack one of the men by biting him at the navel, “transfixing one in the place where we are fed when life begins.” Then it falls the ground, holds the man’s stare while smoke comes out of it’s mouth and out of the man’s navel. It’s the beginning of the metamorphosis where the two exchange places. The snake becomes the man and the man becomes the snake. The smoke may be the soul, or personhood, of their beings. It is within this commingled smoke that the transformation is completed. Dante goes moment by moment through the transformation showing how they become each other. Body part by body part. This is a perversion of birth. When a human being is conceived, God breathes life into him/her while in the womb, quickening the child, giving it life. The child grows within his/her mother and is born. The whole process binds mother and child together in a normal human relationship. A mother is bound to her child, normally, for the rest of their lives. God made it this way for the survival of the child. A baby needs an adult for protection and provision. If there were no bond, babies might not survive. There is a bond with the father too, but having the child grow within her, depending on her for everything, makes the mother/child bond very strong. In most normal people, whenever a child is in the room, all adult eyes will keep on the child, regularly checking to make sure the child is OK. If something dangerous happens, most normal adults will naturally try to attend to a child in the vicinity first. It’s a builtin safeguard for the survival of the human race. Of course, we know many people are not “normal” and they are the ones who don’t like children, don’t care about what happens to children, even seeks to harm, abuse, molest and destroy children. This is a perversion of what God intended. God intended parents to bond and love their children, to protect and provide for them. Again, God’s intent for a family, was as a teaching device. A loving and functional family is intended to teach us the type of relationship God, the Father, wants with His children. He wants us to learn to trust Him completely as a child trusts their parents completely. Dysfunctional families are an aberration of God’s design due to sin. Each member of the family is a sinner and therefore the potential for dysfunctional families exists but was not the original design of the Creator. So this metamorphosis is a perversion of birth and parental bonding.
This metamorphosis is also a perversion of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Catholics believe that when the priest offers the elements of the Eucharist after he blesses it, the wine and the unleavened bread actually become the blood and body of Jesus Christ.
According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, “the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of his Blood. This change is brought about in the eucharistic prayer through the efficacy of the word of Christ and by the action of the Holy Spirit. However, the outward characteristics of bread and wine, that is the ‘eucharistic species’, remain unaltered.” – Wikipedia
Protestants see the Lord’s Supper as a sacrament but more symbolic. We believe the wine and unleavened bread (leaven was used as a symbol of sin in the Bible so unleavened bread indicates Christ’s sinlessness) symbolize Jesus’ blood and body and we eat and drink it in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.
Embryology and birth — the generation of new life — suggest that Dante has shifted from metamorphosis to metousiosis (μετουσίωσις), the Greek term that refers to a change not of shape alone but also of essence or inner reality. Greek metousiosis is the equivalent of Latin transubstantiation, which is the technical term used by theologians for the change by which the bread and the wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist become in actual reality the body and blood of Christ: “vere, realiter ac substantialiter” (truly, really, and substantially). Not a figure or symbol of Christ’s body and blood, nor merely the outward shape or external form of Christ’s body and blood: the bread and wine become the true substance and reality of Christ’s body and blood. In other words, the substance or essence of the being is changed. – DigitalDante.columbia.edu
“The soul on whom he fastened is named Buoso, but nothing further is known of him. According to some commentators he was a certain Buoso degli Abati; while others identify him with that Buoso Donati who was so cleverly personated by Gianni Schicchi [Inf. xxx. 25-45; {see comment to Inf. xxx. 42-45}].” – John S. Carroll
The three men are identified as:
Gianni Schicchi de’ Cavalcanti was a 13th-century Italian knight. He belonged to the illustrious Cavalcanti family but was notoriously unscrupulous and clever at disguises. Buoso Donati, of the famous Donati family, was dying and wished to make a new will. His son was afraid of being left out of the will. He didn’t allow his father to change his will. After his death, Simone asked advice from Gianni Schicchi. Gianni proposed to disguise himself as Buoso Donati and Simone would bring a notary. Schicchi would dictate a “new will” as Buoso. Simone agreed. But when it came time to dictate the will, Schicchi tricked Simone and dictated a large sum to himself. Simone was afraid to stop him. He even dictated that Simone would inherit nothing if he didn’t execute the will entirely within 15 days. This story may be mostly supposition but Dante used it in his Comedie. – The Story of Dante’s Gianni Schicchi and Regnard’s Légataire Universel, by Rudolph Altrocchi, Published by: Modern Language Association
Puccio dei Galigai was a Florentine noble of the thirteenth century nicknamed Puccio Sciancato which means he was crippled or lame in his legs. He was a Ghibelline and was banished from Florence in 1268 but was back in the city by 1280. He is the only one of the thieves mentioned that doesn’t go through a transformation in front of Dante.
Francesco dei Cavalcanti lived in the thirteenth century. He was also known as known as Guercio (but perhaps it was a distortion of Guccio or Guelfo). He was allegedly murdered by the inhabitants of Gaville, a small town near Florence, now a hamlet, but it is not known why (repeated thefts?). After the incident, Francesco’s spouses took revenge on the city harshly, with murders and destruction of houses, which is why the mention of the town’s continued crying could be explained. – Wikipedia
Why all the metamorphoses in the punishment of thieves? The contrapasso is that thieves, who took others’ belongings, now have their only remaining belonging—their human form and identities—taken from them.
In the living world, the thieves stole things that belonged to other people, and in this bolgia the only thing the naked thieves have — their identity — is stolen by other thieves. The snakes and legged reptiles here are thieves, and the only way for a snake or legged reptile to regain a human form is to steal it from another thief. – DavidBruceblog
A thief is sneaky, they work quickly and they rely on surprise. In other words, they hit when you aren’t looking and aren’t suspecting it. The way snakes are. Snakes are sneaky, they can move quickly and they blend in so you are surprised when they strike. Their bite is dangerous. One of the results of a snakebite is your loss of trust. You become afraid of encountering another snake. Same when a thief strikes. You are left feeling vulnerable and afraid it will happen again. You lose trust. The thieves in this bolgia suffer in the same way. They are vulnerable, afraid, and can’t trust each other. They never know when a serpent will strike them.
“The most general idea is that which lies on the very surface, namely, that Thieves ara a combination of man and serpent, like Geryon, the Guardian of this whole Circle of Fraud. The symbolism of the serpent is obvious enough: lurking, thief-like, among the grass and stones, creeping into houses by whatever hole it can find, and wounding its victim when he has no suspicion of its presence. As on earth these souls transformed themselves by various disguises for their thievish ends from man to serpent, from serpent to man, so now their doom is that this transformation goes on for ever: they have created in themselves an eternal duplicity of nature. Still further, the serpent is the enemy of all mankind; and therefore in this valley of serpent-thieves Dante sets before us the kind of world which would exist were all bonds of common honesty dissolved – the social confusion and insecurity and fear, no man knowing when he would be attacked by some serpent which might turn out to be one of his own comrades. It is probably for reasons such as these that Dante sets this sin so far down in Hell, below Simony and Barratry, and far below Robbery. The first two, evil as they are, do not create the same sense of insecurity and social confusion; and Robbery is, by comparison, an open and honest crime.” – John S. Carroll
Exodus 20:15 You shall not steal.
Hosea 7:1-2 (NLT) “I want to heal Israel, but its sins are too great. Samaria is filled with liars. Thieves are on the inside and bandits on the outside! Its people don’t realize that I am watching them. Their sinful deeds are all around them, and I see them all.”
Job 24:16-18 (NLT) 16 Thieves break into houses at night
and sleep in the daytime.
They are not acquainted with the light.
17 The black night is their morning.
They ally themselves with the terrors of the darkness.
18 “But they disappear like foam down a river.
Everything they own is cursed,
and they are afraid to enter their own vineyards.
Mark 7:21-23 (BSB) 21 For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. 23 All these evils come from within, and these are what defile a man.”
Psalm 62:8-10 (NET) 8 Trust in him at all times, you people!
Pour out your hearts before him!
God is our shelter! (Selah)
9 Men are nothing but a mere breath;
human beings are unreliable.
When they are weighed in the scales,
all of them together are lighter than air.
10 Do not trust in what you can gain by oppression!
Do not put false confidence in what you can gain by robbery!
If wealth increases, do not become attached to it!
Matthew 6:19-21 (BSB) 19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Excerpts of Inferno are from a new translation by Robert Pinsky.
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