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Inferno: Pier Delle Vigne and Guido Da Montefeltro

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Inferno: Pier Delle Vigne and Guido Da Montefeltro
Inferno: Pier delle Vigne and Guido da Montefeltro

In his poem, Inferno, Dante Alighieri meets the damned souls in hell. His mentor, Virgil, a well-known poet and a good friend of Dante’s, guides him through out their journey of hell and encourages him to farther question those souls damned in hell. Virgil also explains the structure of hell, how it is divided into circles and each circle is the place where those guilty of certain sins are being punished. Through out the poem, the souls that Virgil and Dante encounter, all try to justify their sin and they indirectly ask for pity. Here is where Dante the poem leaves the decision up to the reader, whether or not the punishment fits the sinner and the sin and whether or not they deserve pity. Two characters that Virgil and Dante encounter are Pier delle Vigne and Guido da Montefeltro. Pier delle Vigne was a famous Chancellor of the Emperor Frederick II, he is in hell because he committed suicide after being accused of treason. Guido da Montefeltro, on the other hand, was an important military general, strategists, and a politician. Guido is in hell because he was found guilty of false counsel.

We find Pier delle Vigne and Guido da Montefeltro in different locations, circles, of hell; Pier is in the second ring of the sixth circle of hell and Guido, on the contrary, is the eighth bolgia of the eighth circle of hell. The sixth circle of hell is where those guilty of violence are punished. Three rings constitute the sixth circle; each ring represents a different kind of violence, in the second ring we find all the souls that have committed suicide which is a form of violence against self, “The hell of the suicides is suicide itself repeated every moment of eternity” (Sinclair, notes Canto XIII). Farther below the sixth circle, we find the eighth circle of hell or the Malebolge. In the Malebolge the souls guilty of fraud are punished. The eighth circle consists of ten bolgias which represent the different kinds

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