of Dante’s The Inferno
Presented by: Lindsey Boles
The Location:
CIRCLE EIGHT
of hell
Also known as
Bolgia Nine
Those who are here are considered
The Sowers of Discord
Their sin was they rend asunder what
God had meant to be united
For this, they are hacked and torn
Through all eternity by a
Demon with a bloody sword
Dante would describe the way
he felt as he looked on as:
“At grief so deep the tongue must
wag in vain; the language of our
sense and memory lacks the
vocabulary of such pain.”
Dante said nothing he has seen would
compare to what he has seen here.
Not even these events:
The people who have stood on Puglia’s soil and
wept for those at the war of the Trojans
Those bodies who felt the wet and gaping
wounds of Robert Guiscard’s lances
Those whose bones are gathered yet at
Ceperano where every last Pugliese turned
traitor
Those from Tagliacozzo where Alardo won without
weapons
The souls here are distinguished by three
classes
 The Sowers of Religious Discord
 The Sowers of Political Discord
 Bertrand de Born: The Sower of
Discord Between Kinsmen
Sowers of Religious Discord
Two souls present here are Mahomet and his
Son-in-law Ali
Mahomet, who was the chief, was cut from his crotch
to his chin with his internal organs hanging out
Ali, who was ahead of Mahomet, was cut from his
topknot to his chin
Those present are sowers of
scandal and schism
The schism of Mahomet and Ali’s body represent the
total schism between Christianity and
Mohammedanism, which God had intended for
these to be united
While there, Mahomet issues a warning to
another schismatic, Fra Dolcino. Fra was a
member of the Apostolic Brothers, and
Mahomet warned unless he wants to be like
him, he will think about losing to the Novarese
Sowers of Political Discord
The three Dante comes
in contact with are:
Pier da Medicina
Tribune Curio
Mosca dei Lambert
These three have unique wounds. They are
mutilated according to their sins.
Pier da Medicina had his throat slit open, his nose slashed as
far as his eyebrows, and he had an ear missing. He is from
Italy and has a warning for Messers Guido and Angiolello:
they will be victims of a raid
Tribune Curio had a bloody stump that took the place of
his tongue. He had been the one to settle Caesar’s
doubts that day at the Rubicon by telling him: “A man
prepared is a man hurt by delay.”
Mosca dei Lambert had both his arms hacked through once
said, “A thing done has an end.” After saying this he would
plant the fields of war with Tuscan dead, which would bring
death to all in his clan
Bertrand de Born,
Sower of Discord Between Kinsmen
His wound would simply be his head cut apart
from this body, he would then carry it around
the circle by the hair. The head would be
stretched out at arm’s length to represent a
lantern.
His sin was he was the one who set the young
king to mutiny, seperating father from son, much
like Achitophel set Absalom and David apart.
Since he seperated those two, his brain was
divided from its source for eternity