A member of the Brigata Spendereccia, 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. He is in the tenth chasm.
Dante’s great-great-grandfather, whose son was Alighiero I. Cacciaguida’s wife was Alighiera of the Aldighieri family of
Ferrara.
He took part in Saint Bernard
of Clairvaux’s crusade of 1147 under Emperor Conrad III,
and was killed. His brother’s name Eliseo
suggests a connection with the Elisei family.
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. He is in the Fifth sphere of Mars.
Paradiso Canto XVI:1-45. He was born, according to Dante in August of 1091, under the sign of Leo, calculated from the period of Mars orbit, 687 days, multiplied by the 580 orbits mentioned. He was then fifty-six when he joined the Crusade.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He leaves Dante to rejoin the other spirits, in the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
His father Alberto was head of the Bolognese Guelphs. He himself was a
leading Guelph, exiled in 1289, and a follower of Marquis Obizzo II d’Este of Ferrara. He
assisted the Marquis in the seduction of his own sister, Ghisola, who later married Niccolò de
Fontana of Ferrara in 1270. Dante met him in exile, possibly in Florence.
Inferno Canto XVIII:40-66. He is in the eighth circle, first chasm, of pimps, go-betweens, and panders.
The three-headed shepherd, son of Hephaestus and Medusa. He lived in a deep cave in the
Aventine forest. He stole two of Hercules’s
prize bulls, and four heifers, after Hercules had taken the cattle of King Geryon in his Tenth Labour. Hercules
battered him to death. Dante follows Livy i. 7, and Virgil Aeneid viii 193-267,
where Virgil calls him semihominis, leading to Dante confusing him with
the Centaurs, who guard the Violent higher up, in the seventh circle.
As an enemy of Evander and Hercules he is an enemy of Rome.
Inferno Canto XXV:1-33. He is in the
eighth circle, with the thieves.
The son of the Phoenician King Agenor, who searches for his sister
Europa, stolen by Jupiter in the form of a bull. He sows the serpent’s teeth,
and founds Thebes, but offends the sacred Serpent of Mars. He and his wife
Harmonia are ultimately turned into snakes. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses IV 563 et
al.
Inferno Canto XXV:79-151. Mentioned, as an example of mutation.
Caecilius Statius the comic poet (d. 168
BC)
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. He is in Limbo.
See Carignano
Inferno Canto XXI:97-139. A demon guarding the eighth circle, the fifth chasm, of the barrators.
Inferno Canto XXII:97-123. He does not trust Ciampolo.
The high priest among the Pharisees, see John xi 47-53, who said ‘it is
expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole
nation should perish not’. His father-in-law was Annas,
see John xviii 13.
Inferno Canto XXIII:82-126. He is
in the eighth circle.
The son of Adam and Eve, who killed his brother Abel. He was expelled from Eden to the land of
Nod. See Genesis iv.
Inferno Canto XX:100-130. Paradiso Canto II:46-105. The Man in the Moon in popular superstition, was Cain carrying a bundle of thorns as he went to sacrifice.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:124-151. He is the first of the voices, signifying envy.
The grandson of Rinieri, and Podestà of
Milan, Parma, and Modena, but notorious for his tenure at Florence, from
January to November 1303, by favour of the Blacks, when he proved a bitter
enemy of the Whites.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:28-66. He is mentioned, adversely.
Rinieri a Guelph of Forlì, was Podestà of Faenza in 1247, Parma in 1252, and Ravenna in 1265 and 1292. He attacked Forlì in 1276 but had to retire to Calboli in the valley of Montone, where he surrendered to Guido da Montefeltro, the Captain of Forlì, who razed the stronghold. When Rinier was re-elected Podestà of Faenza in 1292 Mainardo Pagano was Captain. The citizens opposed a tax levied on them by the Count of Romagna, and successfully opposed him. In 1294 the da Calboli were expelled by the Ghibellines, but returned with other Guelphs in 1296, when their enemies were away fighting against Bologna. Shortly after this the Guelphs were routed again and expelled by the Ghibellines, and the aged Rinier was killed.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:1-27. He is among the envious.
Inferno Canto XXI:97-139. A demon guarding the eighth circle, the fifth chasm, of the barrators.
Inferno Canto XXII:124-151. He and Alichino quarrel.
The Greek augur, the brother of Leucippe and Theonoë. At Aulis, where
the Greek ships waited for a favourable wind to sail to Troy, Calchas
interpreted the appearance of a snake that killed a sparrow and her eight
fledglings, and then was turned to stone. It signified that Troy would be taken
in the tenth year after a long struggle. He also prophesied that they must
pacify Artemis by sacrificing Agamemnon’s
daughter, Iphigenia. After that the
north-east wind dropped and the fleet was able to set sail for Troy.
Inferno Canto XX:100-130. He is mentioned in the eighth circle.
An ancient Florentine family, a branch of the Donati.
See the note to Paradiso Canto XVI.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. Mentioned.
The Muse of Epic Poetry, the mother of Orpheus, and the eldest sister of the
Muses (see the fuller entry under Muses).
She took the lead in the competition with the
Pierides.
Purgatorio Canto I:1-27. Dante asks her
to accompany his words.
An Arcadian nympth, a favourite of Artemis-Diana,
raped by Jupiter. Diana expelled her
from her company, and she was changed by Juno
into a bear, and hunted by her son Arcas.
Jupiter placed her in the sky as the constellation of the Bear, Ursa Major, and
Arcas as the constellation of the little Bear, Ursa Minor, at the pole, towards
which the ‘pointers’ Dubhe and Merak, of the Great Bear, or Plough, point as it
circles on Polaris the pole-star. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses II 409-528.
Purgatorio Canto XXV:109-139. She is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXXI:28-63. The Great Bear, circling over the northern latitudes.
Saint Callixtus I, Pope (217-222AD).
Paradiso Canto XXVII:1-66. He died for the faith.
See Pazzi.
Inferno Canto I:100-111. A virgin warrior, the Roman version of an
Amazon, whose death is described in Aeneid XI.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among
the heroes and heroines in Limbo.
The daughter of Gherardo da Camino. The
reference to her is unclear, and may refer to her virtue or her lack of it.
Purgatorio Canto XVI:97-145. She is mentioned.
Captain-General of Treviso from 1283 till his death in 1306 when he was
succeeded by his son Riccardo. Gerard’s daughter
Gaia died in 1311. The allusion to her is not understood.
Purgatorio Canto XVI:97-145. He is mentioned.
The brother of Gaia, and husband of Giovanna Visconti, who was
treacherously murdered at Treviso where the rivers Sile and Cagnano meet, in
1312.
Paradiso Canto IX:1-66. His death is prophesied.
One of the Cancellieri family of Pistoia, who fomented an internal feud
in which many of his kinsmen died. This feud was the source of the Blacks and
Whites, the Neri and Bianchi factions, introduced into Florence also.
Inferno Canto XXXII:40-69. He is in Caïna, in the Ninth Circle.
Inferno Canto XIV:43-72. An Argive chief in the war of the seven against Thebes who scaled the wall, and was struck down by Jupiter’s lightning bolt. He was a symbol of pride. (See Aeschylus: Seven against Thebes)
Inferno Canto XXV:1-33. Cacus outdoes him in pride and arrogance.
King of France (987-996) here confused with his father Hugh the Great
(Duke of the Franks, Count of Paris, died 956) who was the supposed son of a
butcher. When Louis V died in 987, and the Carlovingian Dynasty ended it was
Hugh who succeeded, and founded the Capetian Dynasty, not his son and successor
Robert I. On Louis V’s death, his
uncle Duke Charles of Lorraine, son of Louis IV, was
the only survivor of the Carlovingian line. He was captured by Hugh and
imprisoned till his death in 991. He was not a monk, and Dante may have
confused him with the last of the Merovingians Childeric III who was deposed by
Pepin le Bref in 751 and compelled to become a monk. Between 1060 and 1300 four
Philip’s (I-IV) and four Louis’s (VI-IX) ruled France between them.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. He is among the avaricious.
A Florentine alchemist, known to Dante, burnt alive at Siena in 1293.
Inferno Canto XXIX:121-139. He is in the tenth chasm.
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. He is attacked by Gianni Schicci.
An ancient Florentine family.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. Mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. Feuded with the Montagues, see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for a fictitious re-creation of the feuding.
Malatestino Malatesta of Rimini, the ‘one-eyed traitor’, ‘the young mastiff’, obtained possession of Fano, and added it to Rimini. He invited the two chief nobles Guido del Cassero, and Agniello to meet him at 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.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:55-90. Their death is prophesied.
Renowned for his liberality. A member of a noted family near
Montefeltro. He died between 1270 and 1289.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. He is mentioned.
The Brescian Counts of Casalodi held Mantua in 1272 but were unpopular
and threatened with expulsion. Pinamonte
de Buonaccorsi, obtained control, by advising Alberta to banish the powerful
nobles, as a source of trouble. He then took over, massacred any opponents,
expelled Alberta, and held Mantua until 1291.
Inferno Canto XX:52-99. Mentioned regarding Mantuan history.
A musician of Florence or Pistoia, and a personal friend of Dante’s,
whose poetry he set to music, including perhaps this second canzone which Dante
annotated in the Convivio. He died between 1283 and 1300. He gathers with the
dead souls who are not condemned to the Acheron, at Rome, the portal of
salvation. Since the Jubilee, which began on Christmas day 1299, all those who
have wished for grace have been carried to Purgatory, by the Angel.
Purgatorio Canto II:79-114. He is entering Purgatory.
Malatestino Malatesta
of Rimini, the ‘one-eyed traitor’, ‘the young mastiff’, obtained possession of
Fano, and added it to Rimini. He invited the two chief nobles Guido, and Agniello da Carignano to meet him at 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.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:55-90. Their death is prophesied.
A Guelph from Fano, in the mark of Ancona, between Romagna and the Kingdom of Naples, ruled by Charles II of Anjou. He was Podestà of Bologna in 1296. He frustrated the designs on the city of Azzo VII d’Este, Marquess of Ferrara, incurring Azzo’s wrath, and exchanged his office for that of Milan, in 1298. He was murdered on Azzo’s orders at Oriaco, near the River Brenta, between Venice and Padua, and died in the marshes there, while fleeing to La Mira would have taken him to drier land. The Paduans are called Antenori from their founder Antenor. Riccardo da Camino was one of the assassins.
Purgatorio Canto V:64-84. He is one of the late repentants.
With Marcus Junius Brutus,
Gaius Cassius plotted to assassinate Julius
Caesar, fearful of Caesar’s increasing power, and the death of the
Republic. Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March in 44BC, in the Hall of Pompey where the Senate were
due to meet. One of the Casca brothers struck the first blow, with a sweep of
his dagger just below the throat. In the ensuing Civil War, Octavian, later Augustus Caesar, and Mark Antony, defeated
Cassius at the First Battle of Philippi, and Brutus at the Second Battle of
Philippi, in 42BC. Dante
holds him in special opprobrium, because of his complicity in the murder of the
founder of the Roman Empire.
Inferno Canto XXXIV:55-69. He is tormented in one of Satan’s mouths.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
A gentleman of Treviso, noted for his hospitality and generosity. To the
French the Lombards were tricky, and often usurers, perhaps the source of his
name, being in contrast, the ‘honest one’, simplice.
Purgatorio Canto XVI:97-145. He is
mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto IV:52-87. The Twins, the Dioscuri, the Gemini, represented by that constellation of the Zodiac. They were the twin sons of Tyndareus and Leda, famous for their horsemanship, though Pollux (Polydeuces) may have been Zeus’s swan-son, and Helen’s brother, while Castor was mortal and Clytaemnestra’s brother. Pollux refused immortality unless his brother could share it, and Zeus set them among the stars. They are the saviours of shipwrecked sailors, and were worshipped by the Spartans
Ghibellines, based in the stronghold of
Castrocaro, near Forlì
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. They are mentioned.
One of the Frati Gaudenti, or Jovial Friars, a derisive name for
the Cavalieri di S. Maria (Ordo militae beatae Mariae) 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 laxity. Catelano de’ Catalini (or
de’ Malavolti) c.1210-1285, and Loderingo
degli 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 (Piazza di
Firenze) 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.
An ancient Florentine family. See the note to Paradiso Canto XVI.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. Mentioned.
Marcius Portius Cato, the Younger (95-46BC), the Republican opponent of Julius Caesar. He supported Pompey as the lesser of two evils,
and was noted for his honesty and moral stance. After the battle of Thapsus, in
46 BC, he committed suicide
while governor of Utica near Carthage rather than fall into enemy hands. This
was regarded as an act of supreme devotion to liberty. Cato the lawgiver is
depicted with the righteous in Virgil’s Aeneid VIII 670. Dante derived his
knowledge of Cato from Lucan’s Pharsalia
II 373. Cato’s wife was Marcia.
Inferno Canto XIV:1-42. Cato crossed the Libyan desert in 47BC, at the head of Pompey’s army, to meet up with Juba, King of Numidia. The march is described by Lucan in Pharsalia IX 411 et seq.
Purgatorio Canto I:28-84. The Poets meet him. The Mount of Purgatory is in Cato’s care.
The father of the poet Guido Cavalcanti, is
mentioned in Boccaccio’s Decameron VI 9, in a tale which concerns Guido.
Inferno Canto X:52-72. He is in the
Sixth Circle as a heretic.
Francesco, who changes from serpent to man, and back, was killed by the
villagers of Gaville, in the upper Val d’Arno, the murderers and others being
summarily executed by his kinsmen.
Inferno Canto XXV:79-151. He is in the eighth circle.
The poet, son of Cavalcante Cavalcanti, born
between 1250 and 1259, was Farinata’s
son-in-law, and a prominent White (Bianchi) Guelf. He married Farinata’
daughter, Beatrice, during one of the attempts to forge peace through marriage
alliances. He, ‘the first of my friends’, and Dante are the chief poets of the
Florentine School of the dolce stil nuove style of lyric poetry that
superseded the Bolognese school of Guido
Guinicelli. The Vita Nuova was dedicated to Guido. He was exiled with the
Whites (a decision Dante was party to) in June 1300 to Sarzana in the
Lunigiana. Allowed to return to Florence, due to illness, caused by the
unhealthy locality, he died in the August and was buried on August 29th, but
was still alive at the time of the Vision itself. He is mentioned in Bocaccio’s
Decameron VI 9.
Inferno Canto X:52-72. His father Cavalcante asks after him. Dante mentions Guido’s disdain of Virgil, through poetic preference, political allegiance, Epicurean principles, preference for Italian over Latin, or some other reason.
See Ciacco’s prophecy and Inferno Canto VI:64-93 for an indirect reference.
Purgatorio Canto XI:73-117. Dante
expresses the view that he has surpassed the poetic school of Guido Guinicelli. (The earlier poet who
wrote the lines ‘Love was not before the gentle heart, nor the gentle heart
before love’)
Pietro da Morrone, a saintly hermit from the Abruzzi, was compelled to
become Pope by the Cardinals in 1294, at the age of eighty. Five months later,
worn out, he abdicated. He was confined by his successor Boniface VIII till his death in 1296. He
was canonised in 1313.
Inferno Canto III:58-69. Celestine is the likeliest candidate, as attested by Petrarch and others, for he who made ‘il gran rifiuto’.
Inferno Canto XXVII:58-136. Dante
again refers to Celestine’s indifference to the Papal honour.
Fabulous creatures, living in the mountains of Thessaly, half man and
half horse. They were the sons of Ixion, and a cloud, in the form of Juno. They fought violently at the battle of
the Lapiths and Centaurs, at the marriage feast of Pirithoüs and Hippodamia, at
which Theseus was present. See
Ovid’s Metamorphoses XII 210. Virgil calls them furentes in Georgics ii
45-456.
Inferno Canto XII:49-99. They guard the river of blood in the seventh circle.
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:100-154.
The battle is referred to.
The triple headed hound of Hell, with snakes for hair, and barbed tail,
that guarded the gates of Tartarus. The foam from his mouth was poisonous. He
was born of Echidne by Typhon. Associated
with the Egyptian god Anubis, by the Greeks. He was dragged from Hell by Hercules (The Twelfth Labour) and the
foam from his mouth gave birth to the poisonous plant aconite.
Inferno Canto VI:1-33. He guards the third circle of the gluttonous.
Inferno Canto IX:64-105. His throat is
still scarred from Hercules assault on him.
See Ciacco’s prophecy and Inferno Canto VI:64-93 for an indirect reference.
Paradiso Canto XVI:46-87. They are
mentioned among the ancient Florentine families. Leaders of the Whites they
originated from Acone in the Val di Sieve. See the note to Paradiso
Canto XVI.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. Mentioned
indirectly.
Charles (Born 742, Ruled 768-814 AD), the son of Pepin the Short , King of the Franks. He conquered the Langobard kingdom in 773-774, and extended his empire into Slav territory. As the Founder of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Leo III (795-816) crowned him Emperor 23-24 December 800, with the Imperial title ‘Romanorum gubernans imperium’. By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 812, the Eastern Roman Emperor, Michael I, recognised Charlemagne as Emperor in exchange for the surrender of Istria, Venetia, and Dalmatia. He died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 814 and was entombed in the Dome. He was the legendary rebuilder of Florence.
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 the traitor
Ganelon, and did not provide aid. The
epic is told in the Old French Chanson de Roland, the ‘Song of Roland’,
where the intensity of Roland’s blast on the horn shattered it. The defeat
allowed Arab incursions into Narbonne in 793.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history, as having protected the Church by use of Imperial force and right.
Paradiso Canto XVIII:1-57. He is in
the Fifth Sphere of Mars.
See Hugh Capet.
The brother of Louis IX of
France, and Count of Provence. He defeated Manfred
King of Sicily, at Benevento, in 1265, and seized Naples and Sicily, supported
by Pope Clement IV. He was described as silent,
serious and cold, though not uncultured. He schemed to bring down the Eastern
Emperor Michael Paleologus, but was opposed by King Pere II of Aragon whose wife
Constance (Constanza) was Manfred’s daughter. On
Easter Monday 1282 the approaches of a young French soldier to a young Sicilian
woman in Palermo provoked his murder by her husband, and, while the bells
called Vespers, it led to a chain reaction of anti-French massacres in Sicily.
Pere was able to take advantage of a power vacuum, and ousted Charles from
Sicily. It was the beginning of the ninety-year ‘War of the Vespers’. He and
Peter (Pere) both died in 1285.
Inferno Canto XIX:88-133. Charles refused to accept one of Pope Nicholas III’s nieces as a wife for his nephew, and Nicholas deprived Charles of the office of Senator of Rome, and accepted money from Michael Paleologus, helping to fuel Charles’s anti-Byzantine policy.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:1-21. Manfred trusted the pass of Ceperano (on the Liris) to the barons of Apulia, in 1266. They betrayed the pass to Charles, leading to Manfred’s defeat and death at Benevento.
In 1268, at Tagliacozzo, Charles defeated Conradin, Manfred’s nephew, using reserve troops, on the advice of Erard de Valéry (Alardo). He married Beatrice of Provence, and then Margaret of Burgundy.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. He is one of the negligent rulers. His son Charles II of Anjou and Naples, is inferior to him.
Purgatorio Canto XI:118-142. He imprisoned a friend of Provenzan Salvani.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. He received Provence as a dowry, on marrying Beatrice in 1246, after the death of her father Raymond Berenger. He defeated Conradin, last of the Swabians, at Tagliacozzo. On Oct 29th 1268 two months after his defeat the seventeen-year-old Conradin was beheaded, on Charles’s orders. Charles’s son was Charles the Lame, who assisted him in trying to retake Sicily. He was supposed to have had Thomas Aquinas poisoned in 1274, though this is spurious.
Carlo Zoppo, Charles the Lame, the son of Charles
I of Anjou. King of Naples (Apulia) and Count of Anjou and Provence
(1243-1309), and alive at the time of the Vision. Titular King of Jerusalem,
and head of the Italian Guelphs in 1300.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. Dante regards him as far inferior to his father.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. Attempting with his father to regain Sicily he was captured by Roger di Loria, the admiral of Peter III of Aragon, near Naples in a naval battle, and taken prisoner, in June 1284. His life was spared on the instigation of Manfred’s daughter Costanza. He was still in captibity in 1285 when he succeeded his father as King of Naples. In 1305 he married his younger daughter Beatrice to Azzo VIII of Este, Marquis of Ferrara, of evil reputation, and her senior by many years, presumably for a consideration.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history, with disdain.
Paradiso Canto VIII:31-84. Charles Martel was his son, who died before him.
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
Paradiso Canto XX:1-72. He is a burden to Naples.
Charles (1271-1295) the eldest son of Charles
II of Naples and Mary of Hungary, the daughter of Stephen IV. Dante
probably met him in March 1295 when he visited Florence, and was popular. He
died in the August. He was married to Clemenz, or
Clementina, the daughter of Emperor Rudolph
of Hapsburg, and his line might have reconciled the Guelph and Ghibelline
factions, but his early death quenched Dante’s hopes. His brother was Robert Duke of Calabria. His
daughter Clemenza married Louis X of France. His wife Clemenz died in 1296. His
son Caroberto became heir to Naples but was ousted by
Robert, his uncle.
Paradiso Canto VIII:31-84. He describes the regions over which he would have held power including Provence, of which the Angevin kings of Naples were Counts; Hungary of which he had already been crowned king in 1290 at Naples, holding it from his mother; and Sicily, which would already have been his had it not been for the Sicilian Vespers, in 1282, the rising in Palermo against the French that led to rule by the House of Aragon.
See Ciacco’s prophecy and Inferno Canto VI:64-93 for an indirect reference.
Inferno Canto XXIV:130-151. Vanni Fucci’s prophecy, covers his involvement in the entry of the Blacks into Florence in November 1301.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. The brother of Philip IV, the Fair, nicknamed Senzaterra (Lackland, so called as a younger son or because of his failures in Sicily in 1302) who entered Florence in November 1301, and left in the following April. He supported the Neri (Blacks) at Boniface’s instigation, using treachery and perjury to coerce the Signoria, and left the city, covered with disgrace, and loaded with plunder, leaving the Neri in control. The treachery of he and Philip his brother towards the Count of Flanders in 1299 was revenged three years later at Courtrai, where the Flemish (‘Douay, Lille, Ghent and Bruges’) routed the French.
Paradiso Canto IX:1-66. The son of Charles
Martel and Clemenza. See the entry for Charles.
The ferryman of the River Acheron in the Underworld. His price for
ferrying a dead spirit across the river was an obolus, a coin, without
which the spirit was doomed to wander the deserted shore without refuge. The
Greeks placed an obolus in the mouths of the dead, as their fare.
Acheron, the son of Gaea, quenched the thirst of the Titans and was thrown by
Zeus into the Underworld, where he was changed into the river bearing his name.
The other rivers of the Underworld were the Cocytus a tributary of the Acheron,
with its tributary the Phlegethon, the Lethe, and the Styx.
Inferno Canto III:70-99. He tells Dante to depart since he is still living.
Inferno Canto III:100-136. He ferries
the dead souls over the Acheron.
The whirlpool in the straits of Messina. She was the daughter of Neptune and Earth hurled, by Jupiter’s thunderbolt, into the sea. The rock Scylla not mentioned here was nearby in the other cliff, a dog-like monster with six heads. To be between Scylla and Charybdis was to be in dire straits. (See Ovid’s Metamorphoses XIII 730)
Inferno Canto VII:1-39. Dante compares the dance of the Avaricious to the waves of Charybdis’s whirlpool.
An ancient Florentine family. See the note to Paradiso Canto XVI.
Paradiso Canto XVI:88-154. Mentioned in connection with falsification of the measures. See note to Purgatorio.
The wise Centaur, son of Saturn and Philyra, to whom Apollo
entrusted his son Aesculapius, and who variously reared Jason, and Achilles. He was wounded by one of Hercules’s poisoned arrows, but could not
die because he was immortal. Prometheus accepted immortality in his stead to
allow him to end his suffering.
Inferno Canto XII:49-99. Chiron appoints Nessus to guide them in the seventh circle.
Purgatorio Canto IX:34-63. He is mentioned.
Inferno Canto IV:1-63. The Saviour,
whose name is not mentioned explicitly in the Inferno. Dante follows the legend
that Christ descended to Hell in the year 33AD (fifty
two years after Virgil’s death and entry into Limbo).
Inferno Canto XII:28-48. The earth shook at his death, prior to his descent into Hell. See Matthew xxvii 51.
Inferno Canto XXXIV:70-139. Christ is the symbol of Divine Humanity, sinless from birth.
Purgatorio Canto VI:76-151. Dante calls God, incarnate in Christ, the highest Jove (Jupiter), thereby identifying supreme Empire and law with the Deity, while superseding the Pagan Gods.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. The Pope is his Vicar on earth. His trial and crucifixion is referred to.
Purgatorio Canto XXI:1-33. He offered water to the woman of Samaria. See John iv 7-15.
Purgatorio Canto XXI:1-33. He appeared at Emmaus after the Resurrection. See Luke xxiv 13-15.
Purgatorio Canto XXIII:37-90. On the cross, Christ cried out: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ Matthew xxviii 46, Mark xv 34.
Purgatorio Canto XXXI:70-90. He is represented by the Grifon in the Divine Pageant.
Purgatorio Canto XXXII:64-99. At the Transfiguration, see Matthew xviii 1-8 Christ shone like the sun in white raiment, and Moses and Elias appeared talking with him, and after they were overcome he 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 VII:1-54. The Crucifixion was both supreme justice exacted on human nature for the Fall, and supreme injustice when the person on whom it fell is considered.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. Rahab, the prostitute, symbol of the Church, who was the first to welcome Joshua into what became Israel, was the first spirit snatched up to Heaven at Christ’s triumph.
Paradiso Canto XI:1-42. As the Bridegroom of the Church.
Paradiso Canto XI:43-117. Saint Francis exhibited the five wounds of Christ, as stigmata, and bore the marks for two years.
Paradiso Canto XIII:91-142. Christ is Humanity’s delight and joy.
Paradiso Canto XIV:67-139. Dante’s vision of Christ on the Cross.
Paradiso Canto XXV:1-63. He is referred to as Jèsu.
Paradiso Canto XXV:97-139. The Pelican, supposed to feed its young with its own blood, is a symbol of Christ. He with the Virgin alone ascended to Heaven in body as well as in spirit. Enoch and Elijah were only elevated to the Earthly Paradise.
John Chrysostom, or Golden Mouth (c 344-407) Archbishop of
Constantinople, of fearless eloquence, who denounced the vices of the Court and
was persecuted and exiled by the Empress Eudoxia.
Paradiso Canto XII:106-145. He is in the Fourth Sphere of the Sun.
A Florentine, Ciacco (hog), was a contemporary of Dante. He was
renowned for his gluttony, and is mentioned in a story in Bocaccio’s Decameron
(ix.8). He is said to have died in 1286.
Canto VI:34-63. He is punished in the
third circle, of the gluttonous.
A member of the household of, Teobaldo II, Thibaut V Count of Champagne, King of
Navarre (1253-1270), son of the poet-king Thibaut I mentioned by Dante in his De
Vulgari Eloquentia. (see Blake’s engraving, ‘Ciampolo tormented by Devils’,
British Museum, London)
Inferno Canto XXII:31-75. He is in the eighth circle of barrators.
Inferno Canto XXII:76-96. He names other barrators with him.
Inferno Canto XXII:97-123. He tricks the demons.
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. A notorious shrew who married an Imolese.
Giovanno Cimabue, the great Florentine
painter (c1240-c1302).
Purgatorio Canto XI:73-117. He was surpassed by his pupil Giotto.
Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, dictator 458 and 439BC. His name derives from the word cincinnus,
a curl of hair. He conquered the Aequians.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in the summary of Imperial history.
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. The type of the good citizen.
Inferno Canto XXX:1-48. Myrrha the daughter of Cinyras, a Cyprian king, the son of Pygmalion, conceived an incestuous passion for him, and 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 299.
The witch, the daughter of Titan and Perse, who lived on the ‘island’ of
Aeaea (Cape Circeo, on the coast of western Italy). She bewitched the followers
of Ulysses, and delayed him on her
island. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses XIV 247,and Homer’s Odyssey.
Inferno Canto XXVI:85-142. She is mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:28-66. She is mentioned.
Inferno Canto XXI:97-139. A demon guarding the eighth circle, the fifth chasm, of the barrators.
Inferno Canto XXII:31-75. He torments Ciampolo.
Chiari Scifi of Assisi, now known as Santa Clara, Saint Clare
(c1194-1253), the friend and disciple of Saint
Francis of Assisi, who founded the order of Franciscan nuns known as the
‘Poor Clares’ (The Order wore a grey habit, with white coif covered with black
veil)
Paradiso Canto III:97-130. She is higher in Heaven than Piccarda.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. He had Manfred’s body disinterred and reburied, with the rites of excommunication, outside the Papal territory.
Inferno Canto XIX:31-87. Bertrand de Got (Goth), Archbishop of Bordeaux, elected Pope in 1305, through the support of Philip IV, the Fair, of France. He transferred the Papal See to Avignon where it remained until 1377. He died eleven years after Boniface VIII in 1314.
Paradiso Canto XVII:1-99. Encouraged the Emperor Henry VII’s expedition to Italy but was disloyal to him.
Paradiso Canto XXVII:1-66. An indirect reference to the Gascon Pope.
Paradiso Canto XXX:97-148. Supported Henry VII and then turned away from him. His place in Hell is reserved.
Paradiso Canto IX:1-66. Dante addresses her, living, though she is assumed to have died in 1295. She was the daughter of the Emperor Rudolph. She was the mother of Caroberto.
Cleopatra VII, Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt( 68-30BC, r.51-30BC). Of Macedonian origin. She had a child
Caesarion with Julius Caesar and
married Mark Antony, committing suicide
on his death following the lost battle of Actium. She had twins by Antony,
namely Cleopatra Selene, and Alexander Helios.
Inferno Canto V:52-72. She is a carnal sinner in Limbo.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. Mentioned in
the summary of Imperial history.
Saint Cletus, Pope (76-88AD).
Paradiso Canto XXVII:1-66. He died for the faith.
The Muse of History, one of the nine Musae the daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory), and
patronesses of the liberal arts. Their haunts were Mount Helicon and Mount
Parnassus, and their sacred springs were Aganippe and Hippocrene on Helicon,
and Castalia on Parnassus. Statius’s
Thebaid begins with an invocation to her, setting the Pagan, not Christian,
tone of the poem.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:55-93. She is mentioned.
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.
Purgatorio Canto XXI:1-33. She is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XVII:1-99. The daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. The wife of
the Ethiopian king Merops. She was loved by Apollo
and bore him Phaethon, who came to her
to ask for the truth about his paternity. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses I 756 et
seq.
Ghelphs, based in the stronghold of Conio, near Forlì. Conio was ruled
by the Barbiano family, and Count Alberigo da Barbiano of Conio was a famous
condottiere in the next epoch, who won the battle of Marino in 1379. One of St
Catherine’s letters is addressed to him.
Purgatorio Canto XIV:67-123. They are mentioned.
The son of Rudolph II of Burgundy, raised at the Saxon Court.
Hohenstaufen leader of the Second Crusade (1147-1149) with Louis VII of France
. Emperor from 1137-1152.
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. Cacciaguida served him.
The son of Conrad IV of Germany (1250-1254), he was defeated at
Tagliacozzo in 1268 and executed at Naples, at the age of seventeen.
Purgatorio Canto XX:43-96. He is mentioned.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. The wife of Frederick II, and grandmother of Manfred. She was the daughter of King
Roger II, and heiress of the Norman House of Tancred that conquered Sicily and
Southern Italy from the Saracens in the eleventh century, and so of the crown
of ‘the Two Sicilies’ (Naples and Sicily).
Paradiso Canto III:97-130. She had
married Henry son of Frederick Barbarossa
in 1186, who was afterwards Emperor Henry
VI, and bore him Frederick, later Emperor Frederick II. Frederick Barbarossa,
Henry and Frederick II were the three stormwinds of Suabia. She assumed the
regency for her son, after Henry’s death at the early age of 32. She died in
1198. Dante follows the tradition that she had been a nun, and had been forced
to make a political marriage against her will.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. The daughter of Manfred, and wife of Peter (Pere) III of Aragon, who avenged Manfred’s death by conquering Sicily in 1282, after the Sicilian Vespers, taking it from Charles of Anjou.
Purgatorio Canto VII:64-136. She was the mother of James II, King of Aragon, and Frederick II, King of Sicily (both were reigning in 1300).
The ruler of the Western Roman Empire (lived c280-337) after his victory
over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge on the Tiber in 312 AD. The son of Helena. He defeated Licinius at
Adrianople and Chrysopolis in 324, becoming sole ruler of the eastern and
western empire (totius orbis imperator).Byzantium was renamed
Constantinople in 330 and made the second Rome, and the Christian capital as he
had embraced Christianity. He died in 337 after receiving baptism on his
deathbed. He consolidated Diocletian’s structure of the absolute state, to
emphasise the divine nature of the Emperor.
Inferno Canto XIX:88-133. The Donation of Constantine was a forged document of the Middle Ages, in which Pope Sylvester I was supposed to have cured Constantine of leprosy, he then resolving to transfer his capital to Constantinople, leaving the Pope with temporal power in Italy. Dante saw this as the source of the fatal involvement of the Church in temporal power, and as a consequence the Empire’s involvement in coveting the spiritual power of the Church. He considered the Donation invalid as the Emperor could not relinquish temporal power, nor could the Pope receive it. (See Dante De Monarchia iii 10 etc)
Inferno Canto XXVII:58-136. The cure of his leprosy mentioned.
Paradiso Canto VI:1-111. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XX:1-72. He is in the
sixth sphere of Jupiter.
Lords of Montemurlo which they sold to
Florence in 1254.
Paradiso Canto XVI:46-87. They are mentioned among the ancient Florentine families.
The daughter of Scipio Africanus (Publius Cornelius Scipio Major), and
the wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and mother of Tiberius and Caius the
two famous tribunes, the Gracchi. A type of the noble Roman woman. She claimed
that ‘her sons were her jewels’.
Inferno Canto IV:106-129. She is among the heroes and heroines in Limbo.
Paradiso Canto XV:88-148. She is
mentioned as a type of the good woman.
A notorious highwayman of Dante’s time.
Inferno Canto XII:100-139 He is in
the seventh circle.
Purgatorio Canto III:103-145. He disinterred Manfred’s body from the cairn at Benevento and re-interred it across the Verde (Garigliano) outside the kingdom of Naples, with all the rites of excommunication, on the orders of Pope Clement IV.
Marcus Licinius Crassus, surnamed Dives, the Wealthy, triumvir
with Caesar and Pompey in 60BC. He was notorious
for his love of gold, and being killed in battle with the Parthians, their King
Orodes (Hyrodes) poured molten gold down his throat. (Florus, Epitome
iii 2)
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. He is mentioned.
The wife of Aeneas, lost at Troy. See Virgil’s Aeneid II
735.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. Dido’s love for Aeneas wrongs her memory.
The love-god, the son of Venus-Aphrodite.
Called Cupido or Amor. The archer whose arrows cause desire in those they hit.
Paradiso Canto VIII:1-30. He is mentioned.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:91-111. Advised by Curio, according to Lucan (see Pharsalia i. 281) Caesar crossed the Rubicon (‘iacta alea est – 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.
A fabulous race of giants on the coast of Sicily, with one eye in the
centre of their foreheads.
Inferno Canto XIV:43-72. They forged Jupiter’s
lightning bolts in the fires of Mount Aetna on Sicily.
King of the Medes and Persians, defeated by the Massagetae in 529 BC. Tomyris,
the Scythian Queen, cut off his head and threw it into a cauldron of blood. See
the entry for Tomyris.
Purgatorio Canto XII:1-63. He is mentioned.
Inferno Canto XVII:79-136. The Athenian artificer who made the labyrinth at Cnossos, for the Cretan king Minos. The father of Icarus, he made waxen wings, in order for them to escape from Crete. Flying too near the sun Icarus’s wings 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.
Inferno Canto XXIX:100-120. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto VIII:85-148. The type of the artificer, the inventor and craftsman.
An Israelite, taken up by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, after his capture
of Jerusalem. He interpreted the king’s dreams and himself saw prophetic
visions. He initially refused the king’s meat and wine. See Daniel i 8 and 17.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:115-154. He is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto IV:1-63. He divined the king’s dream and interpreted it as well, as Beatrice divines and answers Dante’s doubts. See Daniel ii.
Paradiso Canto XXIX:127-145. Daniel vii 10 indicates the vastness of the Angel multitude.
For the history of the period immediately after the Vision, involving Dante’s exile, see Ciacco’s prophecy.
Inferno Canto X:73-93. Farinata warns him of his long exile, telling him that not fifty moons will pass before he learns how hard it is to return from banishment. The date of the Vision is April 1300, and Dante’s efforts at return were thwarted by the failure of Pope Benedict XI, who succeeded Boniface to achieve reconciliation in early 1304. Benedict visited Florence but left on June 4th leaving the rebellious city under an interdict. It was less than fifty one lunar months before Dante’s efforts at return failed, suggesting a communication with Benedict (Dante was acting as secretary then to Allessandro da Romano, of the old Ghibelline family of the Counts Guidi, who was the leader of the Ghibellines in exile) some time in March or early April.
Inferno Canto XIX:1-30. Dante broke one of the pozzetti or round holes that surrounded the font in the Baptistery (St John) in Florence, to help a child (said to have been Antonio the son of Baldinaccio de’ Cavicciuoli). Dante explains here, to counter charges, presumably of sacrilege made against him.
Inferno Canto XXI:59-96. Dante indicates he was present at the surrender of the Pisan fortress of Caprona, besieged by the Tuscan Guelphs in August 1289. He fought at Campaldino later that year.
Inferno Canto XXII:1-30. He indicates that he saw the campaigning in Aretine territory (in 1289 also?).
Purgatorio Canto XXIV:34-99. Bonagiunta quotes the opening line of the famous first canzone of the Vita Nuova.
Purgatorio Canto XXX:49-81. Beatrice speaks his name.
Purgatorio Canto XXX:82-145. She refers indirectly to his work the Vita Nuova, his early tribute to her memory. He first saw her in May 1274, and she died in June 1290 in her twenty-fifth year on the threshold of her second age of life.
Paradiso Canto V:85-139. Dante, entering the sphere of Mercury that rules Gemini his birth-sign, comments on his own mercurial nature, subject to change and inconstancy.
Paradiso Canto VIII:31-84. The spirit of Charles Martel quotes Dante’s own opening line of the first canzone of the Convivio.
Paradiso Canto XXIV:115-154. In the Metaphysics Aristotle shows that the prime Mover, which causes motion but is not itself moved, must be eternal, must be substantial, and actual, the prime object of desire, and of intellectual apprehension. From these five attributes Aquinas builds his five proofs of the existence of God.
Dante confirms his belief in the Trinity. The sources in the Testaments are chiefly: in the OT the plural form of the word for God, the use of the plural in Genesis i 26, the threefold cry in Isaiah vi 3: in the NT the baptism formula in Matthew xviii 19, the text of the three heavenly witnesses in First Epistles of John v 7 (Vulgate and AV), and the threefold formula in Romans xi 36: but the Unity of the Trinity is the breath behind the word throughout according to Petrus Lombardus and others.
Paradiso Canto XXV:1-63. Dante refused
to accept a laurel crown at Bologna in 1318, invited to do so by Giovanni del
Virgilio, hoping still to return to Florence, and be crowned there.
Paradiso Canto I:1-36. Apollo loved Daphne, the daughter of the river-god Peneus (hence Peneian), who was changed into a laurel-tree by the river-god, as Apollo pursued her. He then adopted her laurel as the sacred tree whose leaves would crown his lyre etc. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses I 452-548.
Inferno Canto XXI:31-58. Head of the popular party in Lucca, and the
worst barrator or abuser of office in the city. Dante’s comment is ironic, presumably
since Bonturo was loudest to deny the offence.
The King of Israel. The son of Jesse, anointed by Samuel. See the Bible, First and Second
Samuel, and First Kings. The type of the pious King.
Inferno Canto IV:1-63. Christ takes his spirit from Limbo into Paradise.
Inferno Canto XXVIII:112-142. King David’s Gilonite counsellor from Giloh, Ahitophel, see Second Samuel xv-xviii, conspired with David’s
son Absalom against the King, and
subsequently hanged himself when his counsel was not followed. Absalom was
killed at the battle in the wood of Ephraim, and David mourned for him, saying
‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O
Absalom, my son, my son!’
Purgatorio Canto X:46-72. He danced before the Ark of the Covenant, in an act of humility and worship. See the Second Book of Samuel vi 6.
Paradiso Canto XX:1-72. He is in the sixth sphere of Jupiter. David is the earthly ancestor of Christ, born at the time when Aeneas came into Italy, so making manifest the Divine ordination of the Roman Empire.
Paradiso Canto XXV:64-96. Dante refers to the Vulgate, the Psalm of David ix 10.
Paradiso Canto XXXII:1-36. The
great-grandson of Ruth. The ‘singer’ of
Psalm 51, the Miserere.
See Justinians’ Empire.
The daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and the sister of Meleager. She was wooed and won by Hercules, and unwittingly caused the
death of Hercules, through the shirt of Nessus.
Inferno Canto XII:49-99. She is
mentioned.
Inferno Canto XXVI:43-84 Achilles was discovered in hiding
on Scyros, where his mother Thetis
had concealed him, at the court of Lycomedes. Deidamia fell in love with him
there, and bore him a son, and died of grief when he left.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. She
is in Limbo. One of the people celebrated by Statius in his epic poetry.
The daughter of King Adrastus of Argos, wife of Tydeus, and mother of Diomede.
Purgatorio Canto XXII:94-114. She is in Limbo. One of the people celebrated by Statius in his epic poetry.
The Greek philosopher, of Aldera, d.361 BC, who developed Leucippus’s ideas of Atomism.
Aristotle said that ‘they make all things number, and produce them from
numbers’, indicating a quantitative theory which did not require a ‘prime
mover’. He was influential in the development of the theory of knowledge, and
of ethics, where he maintained a theory of the harmony of well being of the
ethical man, who chooses ‘the goods of the soul’. Dante regards him as having
taught that the world arises from chance arrangements of atoms.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among
the philosophers in Limbo.
Phyllis, the daughter of the
Thracian King Sithon (living near Mount Rhodope in Thrace) was loved by
Demophoön, King of Melos,the son of Theseus
and Phaedra. He failed to keep his
promise to return to her, and when he did eventually return to find her she had
comitted 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. He is mentioned.
The mythical Queen of Phoenician Carthage, probably an incarnation of
Astarte the Great Goddess, who loved Aeneas and committed suicide when he
deserted her. She broke faith with the memory of her dead husband Sychaeus for him. (See the Aeneid i of
Virgil, and Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of
Carthage.)
Inferno Canto V:52-72. She is a carnal sinner in Limbo.
Inferno Canto V:70-142. Paolo and Francesca are among her companions.
Purgatorio Canto XX:97-151. Her brother was Pygmalion, King of Tyre. See Aeneid i 350 where he is the murderer of Sychaeus.
Paradiso Canto VIII:1-30. Cupid sat in her lap disguised as Aeneas’s son, Ascanius, and inspired her with love for Aeneas. See Virgil’s Aeneid I 650.
Paradiso Canto IX:67-126. Her love of
Aeneas wronged the memory of Sichaeus and Aeneas’s wife Creüsa.
The Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope d. 323 BC a follower of Antisthenes, who was the founder
of the School of the Dog, and who taught in the Gymnasium known as the
Kynosarges. He spent most of his life in Athens after being banished and died
in Corinth. He called himself the Dog and held up animal life as a model for
human beings, and the barbarians as better than the civilised. His task was the
recoining of values. He advocated a positive asceticism in order to
attain freedom, and deliberately flouted convention doing in public what should
be done in private. He called himself a citizen of the world, and
famously replied to Alexander’s request as to what he needed ‘for you to stand
out of my light’.
Inferno Canto IV:130-151. He is among
the philosophers in Limbo.
The daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, or of Earth and Air, and the mother of Venus-Aphrodite. Originally an oak-goddess at Dodona.
Paradiso Canto VIII:1-30. She is mentioned.
Paradiso Canto XXII:100-154. The mother of Venus-Aphrodite.
The Greek hero, the son of Tydeus, King of Argos, and the companion of Ulysses at Troy. See Homer, The Iliad,
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses XIV, XV et al.
Inferno Canto XXVI:43-84. He is in the eighth circle, eighth chasm.
King of Portugal (1279-1325).
Paradiso Canto XIX:91-148. He is held as an example of poor kingship.
See Acts xvii, to whom were ascribed certain mystical writings,
especially one on the Celestial Hierarchy, which were possibly composed
in the fifth or sixth century.