Character List

Dante - The author and protagonist of Inferno; the focus of all action and interaction with
other characters. Because Dante chose to present his fictional poem as a record of
events that actually happened to him, a wide gulf between Dante the poet and Dante
the character pervades the poem. For instance, Dante the poet often portrays Dante the
character as compassionate and sympathetic at the sight of suffering sinners, but Dante
the poet chose to place them in Hell and devised their suffering. As a result, if Dante the
character is at all representative of Dante the poet, he is a very simplified version:
sympathetic, somewhat fearful of danger, and confused both morally and intellectually
by his experience in Hell. As the poem progresses, Dante the character gradually learns
to abandon his sympathy and adopt a more pitiless attitude toward the punishment of
sinners, which he views as merely a reflection of divine justice.
Read an IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF DANTE.
Virgil - Dante’s guide through the depths of Hell. Historically, Virgil lived in the first
century b.c., in what is now northern Italy. Scholars consider him the greatest of the
Latin poets. His masterpiece, the Aeneid, tells the story of how Aeneas, along with
fellow survivors of the defeat of Troy, came to found Rome. The shade (or spirit) of
Virgil that appears in Inferno has been condemned to an eternity in Hell because he
lived prior to Christ’s appearance on Earth (and thus prior to the possibility of
redemption in Him). Nonetheless, Virgil has now received orders to lead Dante through
Hell on his spiritual journey. Virgil proves a wise, resourceful, and commanding
presence, but he often seems helpless to protect Dante from the true dangers of Hell.
Critics generally consider Virgil an allegorical representation of human reason—both in
its immense power and in its inferiority to faith in God.
Read an IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF VIRGIL.
Beatrice - One of the blessed in Heaven, Beatrice aids Dante’s journey by asking an
angel to find Virgil and bid him guide Dante through Hell. Like Dante and Virgil, Beatrice
corresponds to a historical personage. Although the details of her life remain uncertain,
we know that Dante fell passionately in love with her as a young man and never fell out
of it. She has a limited role in Inferno but becomes more prominent in Purgatorio and
Paradiso. In fact, Dante’s entire imaginary journey throughout the afterlife aims, in part,
to find Beatrice, whom he has lost on Earth because of her early death. Critics generally
view Beatrice as an allegorical representation of spiritual love.
Charon - A figure that Dante appropriates from Greek mythology, Charon is an old man
who ferries souls across the river Acheron to Hell.
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini - A pair of lovers condemned to the Second Circle of
Hell for an adulterous love affair that they began after reading the story of Lancelot and
Guinevere.
Lucifer - The prince of Hell, also referred to as Dis. Lucifer resides at the bottom of the
Ninth (and final) Circle of Hell, beneath the Earth’s surface, with his body jutting through
the planet’s center. An enormous giant, he has three faces but does not speak; his
three mouths are busy chewing three of history’s greatest traitors: Judas, the betrayer of
Christ, and Cassius and Brutus, the betrayers of Julius Caesar.
Minos - The king of Crete in Greek mythology, Minos is portrayed by Dante as a giant
beast who stands at the Second Circle of Hell, deciding where the souls of sinners shall
be sent for torment. Upon hearing a given sinner’s confession, Minos curls his tail
around himself a specific number of times to represent the circle of Hell to which the
soul should be consigned.
Pope Boniface VIII - A notoriously corrupt pope who reigned from 1294 to 1303,
Boniface made a concerted attempt to increase the political might of the Catholic
Church and was thus a political enemy of Dante, who advocated a separation of church
and state.
Farinata - A Ghibelline political leader from Dante’s era who resides among the Heretics
in the Sixth Circle of Hell. Farinata is doomed to continue his intense obsession with
Florentine politics, which he is now helpless to affect.
Phlegyas - The boatman who rows Dante and Virgil across the river Styx.
Filippo Argenti - A Black Guelph, a political enemy of Dante who is now in the Fifth
Circle of Hell. Argenti resides among the Wrathful in the river Styx.
Nessus - The Centaur (half man and half horse) who carries Dante through the First
Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell.
Pier della Vigna - A former advisor to Emperor Frederick II, della Vigna committed
suicide when he fell into disfavor at the court. He now must spend eternity in the form of
a tree.
Geryon - The massive serpentine monster that transports Dante and Virgil from the
Seventh to the Eighth Circle of Hell.
Malacoda - The leader of the Malabranche, the demons who guard the Fifth Pouch of
the Eighth Circle of Hell. Malacoda (his name means “evil tail”) intentionally furnishes
Virgil and Dante with erroneous directions.
Vanni Fucci - A thief punished in the Seventh Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell who
prophesies the defeat of the White Guelphs. A defiant soul, Fucci curses God and aims
an obscene gesture at Him before Dante journeys on.
Ulysses - The great hero of the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ulysses was a
bold and cunning man who is now imprisoned in the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle
of Hell among those guilty of Spiritual Theft.
Guido da Montefeltro - An advisor to Pope Boniface VIII, da Montefeltro was promised
anticipatory absolution—forgiveness for a sin given prior to the perpetration of the sin
itself. Da Montefeltro now suffers in Hell, since absolution cannot be gained without
repentance and it is impossible to repent a sin before committing it.
Antaeus - The giant who transports Dante and Virgil from the Eighth to the Ninth Circle
of Hell.
Count Ugolino - A traitor condemned to the Second Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell.
Ugolino gnaws on the head of another damned traitor, Archbishop Ruggieri. When
Ruggieri imprisoned Ugolino and his sons, denying them food, Ugolino was driven to
eat the corpses of his starved sons.
Fra Alberigo and Branca d’Oria - Sinners condemned to the Third Ring of the Ninth
Circle of Hell. Fra Alberigo and Branca d’Oria are unlike the other sinners Dante
encounters: their crimes were deemed to be so great that devils snatched their souls
from their living bodies; thus, their souls reside in Hell while their bodies live on, now
guided and possessed by demons.

Dante Alighieri
Thirty-five years old at the beginning of the story, Dante—the character as opposed to
the poet—has lost his way on the “true path” of life; in other words, sin has obstructed
his path to God. The Divine Comedy is the allegorical record of Dante’s quest to
overcome sin and find God’s love; in Inferno, Dante explores the nature of sin by
traveling through Hell, where evil receives punishment according to God’s justice.
Allegorically, Dante’s story represents not only his own life but also what Dante the poet
perceived to be the universal Christian quest for God. As a result, Dante the character is
rooted in the Everyman allegorical tradition: Dante’s situation is meant to represent that
of the whole human race.
For this reason, Dante the character does not emerge as a particularly well-defined
individual; although we know that he has committed a never-specified sin and that he
participates in Florentine politics, we learn little about his life on Earth. His traits are very
broad and universal: often sympathetic toward others, he nonetheless remains capable
of anger; he weeps at the sight of the suffering souls but reacts with pleasure when one
of his political enemies is torn to pieces. He demonstrates excessive pride but remains
unsatisfied in many respects: he feels that he ranks among the great poets that he
meets in Limbo but deeply desires to find Beatrice, the woman he loves, and the love of
God. Dante fears danger but shows much courage: horrified by Hell, he nevertheless
follows his guide, Virgil, through its gates. He also proves extremely emotional, as
shown by his frequent fainting when he becomes overly frightened or moved. As the
story progresses, Dante must learn to reconcile his sympathy for suffering with the
harsh violence of God’s justice; the deeper he proceeds into Hell, the the less the
agonies of the damned affect him. Virgil encourages him to abhor sin and not pity the
justice meted out to sinners; Dante must achieve this level of stringent moral standards
before he may begin his journey to Heaven, played out in Purgatorio and Paradiso.
Because Dante the character is a fictional creation of Dante the poet, the reader should
remember that the character’s feelings do not always correspond to those of the poet.
For instance, when Dante sees Brunetto Latini among the Sodomites in Canto XV,
Dante the character feels deeply moved and treats his patron kindly and with
compassion. But outside the poem, Dante the poet has chosen to condemn his former
patron to damnation; by placing him among the Sodomites, he implies that Latini was
homosexual, a vicious slur in fourteenth-century Italy. Indeed, on a general level, the
kindness and compassion of Dante the character often contrasts with the feelings of
Dante the poet, who, after all, has devised excruciating torments with which to punish
his characters, many of whom are historical individuals with whom Dante was
acquainted in life.

Virgil
The only character besides Dante to appear all the way through Inferno, Virgil’s ghost is
generally taken by critics to represent human reason, which guides and protects the
individual (represented by Dante/Everyman) through the world of sin. As befits a
character who symbolizes reason, Virgil proves sober, measured, resolute, and wise.
He repeatedly protects Dante from hostile demons and monsters, from Charon to the
Centaurs; when he appears powerless outside the gates of the city of Dis in Canto VIII,
his helplessness appears very ominous, signifying that Lower Hell offers far darker
dangers than Upper Hell. Virgil’s reliance on the angelic messenger in this scene also
symbolizes the fact that reason is powerless without faith—an important tenet of
Dante’s moral philosophy and one that marks Inferno as a Christian poem, distinct from
the classical epics that preceded it. In the fullest sense of the word, Virgil acts as
Dante’s guide, showing him not only the physical route through Hell but also reinforcing
its moral lessons. When Dante appears slow to learn these lessons—such as when he
sympathizes with sinners or attempts to remain too long in one region of Hell—Virgil
often grows impatient with him, a trait that humanizes this otherwise impersonal shade.
Dante the character and Dante the poet seem to regard Virgil differently. Dante the
character regards Virgil as his master, constantly swearing his admiration for, and trust
in, him. Dante the poet, however, often makes use of Inferno to prove his own poetic
greatness in comparison to the classical bards who preceded him—including Virgil, who
lived more than a thousand years before Dante. In Dante’s time, Virgil, the author of the
Aeneid, was considered the greatest of the Roman poets. As with many of his other
classical and mythological appropriations, Dante’s inclusion of Virgil in his poem
denotes both an acknowledgment and appreciation of classical tradition and, to some
degree, a form of bragging on Dante’s part: for while he respects Virgil enough to
include him in his work, he also suggests that his poem subsumes Virgil entirely.

9 Circles of Hell (Dante's Inferno)

Inferno, the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy that inspired the latest Dan
Brown's bestseller of the same title describes the poet's vision of Hell. The story
begins with the narrator (who is the poet himself) being lost in a dark wood
where he is attacked by three beasts which he cannot escape. He is rescued by
the Roman poet Virgil who is sent by Beatrice (Dante's ideal woman). Together,
they begin the journey into the underworld or the 9 Circles of Hell.
First Circle (Limbo)
Dante’s First Circle of Hell is resided by virtuous non-Christians and unbaptized
pagans who are punished with eternity in an inferior form of Heaven. They live
in a castle with seven gates which symbolize the seven virtues. Here, Dante sees
many prominent people from classical antiquity such as Homer, Socrates,
Aristotle, Cicero, Hippocrates, and Julius Caesar.
Second Circle (Lust)
In the Second Circle of Hell, Dante and his companion Virgil find people who
were overcome by lust. They are punished by being blown violently back and
forth by strong winds, preventing them from finding peace and rest. Strong
winds symbolize the restlessness of a person who is led by the desire for fleshly
pleasures. Again, Dante sees many notable people from history and mythology
including Cleopatra, Tristan, Helen of Troy and others who were adulterous
during their lifetime.

Third Circle (Gluttony)

When reaching the Third Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil find souls of
gluttons who are overlooked by a worm-monster Cerberus. Sinners in
this circle of Hell are punished by being forced to lie in a vile slush that
is produced by never-ending icy rain. The vile slush symbolizes personal
degradation of one who overindulges in food, drink, and other worldly
pleasures, while the inability to see others lying nearby represents the
gluttons’ selfishness and coldness. Here, Dante speaks to a character
called Ciacco who also tells him that the Guelphs (a fraction supporting
the Pope) will defeat and expel the Ghibellines (a fraction supporting the
Emperor to which Dante adhered) from Florence which happened in
1302 before the poem was written (after 1308).
Fourth Circle (Greed)
In the Fourth Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil see the souls of people who
are punished for greed. They are divided into two groups – those who
hoarded possessions and those who lavishly spent it – jousting. They use
great weights as a weapon, pushing it with their chests which
symbolizes their selfish drive for fortune during their lifetime. The two
groups that are guarded by a character called Pluto (probably the
ancient Greek ruler of the underworld) are so occupied with their
actions that the two poets don’t try to speak to them. Here, Dante says to
see many clergymen including cardinals and popes.
Fifth Circle (Anger)
The Fifth Circle of Hell is where the wrathful and sullen are punished for their
sins. Transported on a boat by Phlegyas, Dante and Virgil see the furious
fighting each other on the surface of the river Styx and the sullen gurgling
beneath the surface of the water. Again, the punishment reflects the type of the
sin committed during their lifetime. While passing through, the poets are
approached by Filippo Argenti, a prominent Florentine politician who
confiscated Dante’s property after his expulsion from Florence.

Sixth Circle (Heresy)

When reaching the Sixth Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil see heretics
who are condemned to eternity in flaming tombs. Here, Dante talks with
a couple of Florentines – Farinata degli Uberti and Cavalcante de’
Cavalcanti – but he also sees other notable historical figures including
the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II, and Pope Anastasius II. The latter, however, is according to
some modern scholars condemned by Dante as a heretic by mistake.
Instead, as some scholars argue, the poet probably meant the Byzantine
Emperor Anastasius I.
Seventh Circle (Violence)
The Seventh Circle of Hell is divided into three rings. The Outer Ring
houses murderers and others who were violent to other people and
property. Here, Dante sees Alexander the Great (disputed), Dionysius I
of Syracuse, Guy de Montfort and many other notable historical and
mythological figures such as the Centaurus, sank into a river of boiling
blood and fire. In the Middle Ring, the poet sees suicides who have been
turned into trees and bushes which are fed upon by harpies. But he also
sees here profligates, chased and torn to pieces by dogs. In the Inner
Ring are blasphemers and sodomites, residing in a desert of burning
sand and burning rain falling from the sky.
Eight Circle (Fraud)
The Eight Circle of Hell is resided by the fraudulent. Dante and Virgil
reach it on the back of Geryon, a flying monster with different natures,
just like the fraudulent. This circle of Hell is divided into 10 Bolgias or
stony ditches with bridges between them. In Bolgia 1, Dante sees
panderers and seducer. In Bolgia 2 he finds flatterers. After crossing the
bridge to Bolgia 3, he and Virgil see those who are guilty of simony.
After crossing another bridge between the ditches to Bolgia 4, they find
sorcerers and false prophets. In Bolgia 5 are housed corrupt politicians,
in Bolgia 6 are hypocrites and in the remaining 4 ditches, Dante finds
hypocrites (Bolgia 7), thieves (Bolgia 7), evil counselors and advisers
(Bolgia 8), divisive individuals (Bolgia 9) and various falsifiers such as
alchemists, perjurers, and counterfeits (Bolgia 10).
The last Ninth Circle of Hell is divided into 4 Rounds according to the
seriousness of the sin. Though all residents are frozen in an icy lake.
Those who committed more severe sin are deeper within the ice. Each of
the 4 Rounds is named after an individual who personifies the sin. Thus
Round 1 is named Caina after Cain who killed his brother Abel, Round 2
is named Antenora after Anthenor of Troy who was Priam’s counselor
during the Trojan War, Round 3 is named Ptolomaea after Ptolemy (son
of Abubus), while Round 4 is named Judecca after Judas Iscariot, the
apostle who betrayed Jesus with a kiss.