Farinata degli Uberti is a leader of the Ghibellines of Florence, whom the poem places in the sixth circle, among the heretics, in a tomb of fire. In Canto X he rises from the tomb as if he held Hell in great contempt and speaks with Dante about Florence, not about his own punishment.
The scene begins when a voice coming from a tomb recognizes Dante as a Tuscan by his speech. Virgil pushes the poet close to the tomb, telling him to measure his words. Farinata asks who Dante's ancestors were, says they were fierce enemies of him and of his party, and that twice he scattered them. Dante answers that his people returned from exile again and again, and that Farinata's did not learn that art well. The blow lands: Farinata admits that this torments him more than the bed of fire.
Beside him another shade falls back on its back on hearing a verb in the past tense. Farinata does not change his bearing, and explains what the condemned see: things that are far away in time, like one who sees poorly, and not the present, so that they know of the world only what someone brings them. He also foretells to Dante his exile, before the Moon has been lit fifty times.
The poem gives greatness to those it condemns, and Farinata is the example: he is in a tomb of fire and behaves as one who does not acknowledge the punishment. That is why the condemnation, in Hell, is not decorative.