Inferno

Characters

Dante, the Pilgrim Dante, the Pilgrim, is the character who makes the journey: the man who, in the middle of the road of life, finds himself in a dark wood without being able to say how he got there, and who crosses the whole Inferno behind Virgil until he sees the stars again... Virgil Virgil is the shade of the poet of Mantua, author of the Aeneid, and he appears to Dante at the foot of the mountain, in Canto I of the Inferno, with the weak voice of one who has been silent for a long time. He introduces himself by what he no longer is (he... Francesca da Rimini Francesca is the first condemned soul to whom the poem lets tell her own story, and she tells it in the second circle, that of the lustful, who are swept along by a wind that never stops. She comes at Dante's call with another spirit, one that does not speak... Farinata degli Uberti Farinata is the leader of the Ghibellines of Florence, the party that opposed Dante's, and he is named by Virgil when he points to him in the tomb of the sixth circle, that of the heretics. He speaks to Dante in Canto X of the Inferno from inside a tomb with... Brunetto Latini Brunetto Latini is the Florentine master whom Dante meets in the third round of the seventh circle, the wasteland of burning sand on which the rain of fire falls, and to whom the poem grants the title he held in life, Ser. He seizes the pilgrim by the hem of... Pier delle Vigne Pier delle Vigne is the voice of the trunk that cries out when Dante breaks a small branch in the wood of the suicides, the second round of the seventh circle. The poem does not give the name: the spirit introduces himself as the one who held the two keys to... Ulysses Ulysses is the Greek hero whom Dante meets in the eighth ditch of the eighth circle, that of the fraudulent counselors, inside a flame with a split tip that he shares with Diomedes. Each condemned soul in that ditch burns inside a flame that hides him, and... Guido da Montefeltro Guido da Montefeltro is the counselor who speaks from inside a flame, in the same eighth ditch where Ulysses burns, and his speech first arrives as confused noise, like that of the bronze bull that bellowed with the cries of its own maker. He was a man of... Ugolino Count Ugolino is the condemned man whom Dante sees at the end of Canto XXXII of the Inferno, in the ice of Antenora, two in one hole, so that the head of one is the cap of the other: the upper one gnaws the skull of the lower one as bread is eaten in hunger.... Lucifer Lucifer is the emperor of the sorrowful kingdom, held in the ice of Cocytus up to the middle of his chest, at the center of the earth, where the poem places the point toward which all weight converges. He is presented by Virgil, who calls him Dis and tells... Charon Charon is the boatman of the Acheron, the first guardian Dante faces after crossing the gate of Hell. The poem presents him as an old man with hair white from great age, with woolly cheeks and eyes ringed with wheels of fire, who comes in his boat across the... Minos Minos is the judge of Hell. He stands at the entrance to the second circle, snarling horribly, and there he examines the sins of the souls that arrive, judges them, and sends each one to the circle that is its due, wrapping his tail around his body as many...

Other characters

The one who made the great refusal: the shade that, among the ignavi of the vestibule, Dante recognizes as that of one who made the great refusal out of cowardice; the poem does not name him, and the tradition identifies him with Pope Celestine V, who abdicated in 1294 (canto III)
Cerberus: the three-throated beast that flays the gluttonous under the eternal rain and that Virgil silences by throwing dirt into its hungry mouths (canto VI)
Ciacco: the Florentine punished for gluttony, who predicts the ruin of Florence and sums up the cause of discord in three words, pride, envy, and avarice (canto VI)
Plutus: the demon who guards the circle of the avaricious and the prodigal, shouts a formula the poem does not translate, and falls when Virgil orders him to be silent (canto VII)
Phlegyas: the boatman of the Styx, who ferries the poets by boat through the mud to the gates of Dis (canto VIII)
Filippo Argenti: the Florentine covered in mud in the Styx who stretches his hands to the boat, is cursed by Dante, and is torn apart by the other damned (canto VIII)
Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti: the father of the poet Guido Cavalcanti, visible only up to the chin in the tomb of the heretics, who falls on his back on believing his son dead; the poem does not name him, the tradition does (canto X)
Nessus: the centaur who guides the poets across the ford of the river of blood, after Chiron sends him (canto XII)
Capaneus: the king who attacked Thebes and lies under the rain of fire, defying Jupiter, to whom Virgil says his own pride is the greatest punishment (canto XIV)
Geryon: the monster with the face of a just man and the body of a serpent, an image of fraud, who carries the poets on his back from the seventh to the eighth circle (canto XVII)
Venedico Caccianemico: the Bolognese flogged in the first ditch of Malebolge for having brought Ghisolabella to the marquis (canto XVIII)
Malacoda: the chief of the Malebranche, the demons of the pitch, who sends an escort of ten to accompany the poets through the ditch (canto XXI)
Vanni Fucci: the thief from Pistoia who robbed a sacristy, predicts to Dante the defeat of the Whites so that he will suffer, and closes his speech by raising his fists against God (canto XXIV, canto XXV)
Mahomet: split open from chin to belly in the ditch of the sowers of discord, he tears open his chest to show Dante the wound and sends a message to Fra Dolcino (canto XXVIII)
Bertran de Born: the lord of Altaforte who divided father and son and carries his own severed head like a lantern; he is the only voice in the poem that speaks the word contrapasso (canto XXVIII)
Master Adam: the coin forger with a belly swollen by dropsy, who trades blows and insults with Sinon before an overly attentive Dante (canto XXX)
Antaeus: the giant who is loose, lifts Virgil and Dante in his hands and sets them at the bottom of the well, at the foot of the ice (canto XXXI)
Fra Alberigo: the betrayer of guests, in Ptolomea, who asks Dante to remove the ice from his eyes, and to whom Dante promises and does not keep his word (canto XXXIII)