EVERY Character In Dante's Inferno Explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ม.ค. 2025
- Dante's Divine Comedy, and especially the Inferno, is one of the most well known pieces of medieval literature. Even those who have never read it likely recognise the name. But reading it can be a little frustrating if you aren't an early 14th century Italian, because the work is chock full of references to characters, some of whom are very obscure to most normal people. NEVER FEAR!!!! THAT'S WHY I AM HERE!!! Sit back and relax as I go through the Inferno and shout names at you, along with brief descriptions of who the hell these people are and why Dante thinks they deserve to be dunked in God-knows-what and harassed by God-knows-who. If I don't go absolutely insane first, I will also make videos on Purgatorio and Paradiso in the future, so don't forget to SMASH that subscribe button and RING-A-DING that bell... I'm very tired...
Links to the other videos in this series:
-Purgatorio: • EVERY Character In Dan...
-Paradiso: • EVERY Character In Dan...
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Works cited and recommendations for further reading:
-Barański, Zygmunt G., Simon A Gilson, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Dante's 'Commedia' (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
-Durling, Robert M. ed.&trans., Ronald L. Martinez, ed. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Vol. 1, Inferno (Oxford University Press, 1996) [includes the original Italian with facing translation, extensive notes and commentary, as well as a hefty bibliography].
-Jacoff, Rachel, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dante (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
-MacKinnon, Patricia L. "The Analogy of the Body Politic in Saint Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto." Ph.D Thesis, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988.
-Papio, Michael, trans. Boccaccio's Expositions on Dante's Comedy (University of Toronto Press, 2009) [Some of our only information on a number of the characters in the Divine Comedy comes from Boccaccio's 1370s commentary. It's definitely worth a read if you're interested in a deeper dive].
All images used in this video are either my own, in the public domain, under fair use, or under creative commons (whence they shall be credited appropriately)
creativecommon...
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Outro music: Laid Back Guitars by Kevin MacLeod, CC BY-SA 4.0
incompetech.com...
#medievalhistory #medieval #middleages #history #educational #italy #italianhistory #dante #dantealighieri #divinecomedy #inferno #hell #botticelli #purgatory #heaven #paradise #satan #vergil #dantesinferno #iceberg #ninecircles #florence
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For those who want to continue the journey to Purgatory, the next video is now up!
th-cam.com/video/t-q2oT6yrp8/w-d-xo.html
And now so is Paradiso!
th-cam.com/video/AkzaF4YrcGY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=iESAsIyVBLlzp3JB
"Interesting argument, but unfortunately for you I wrote myself as the chad and you suffering in Hell."
The world greatest self insert fanfic.
Very good video on the Inferno. In Italy we study this in high school, as this is considered the first work written in vulgaris, which later on will become Italian, so it's a fundamental part of our culture and history and Dante is considered the father of the Italian language. Because of this, when we graduate from university we wear the laurel's wreath he's depicted with, even though he never wore one himself. The Divine Comedy is so prominent that many of these characters and their characteristics are still used to define people in everyday language. For example, two of my cousins from two of my mother's sisters that were born one year apart from each other are called Francesca and Paolo.
I noticed you tend to use Italy referring to the influence of the Guelphs and Ghibellines wars, especially at the beginning of the video, but that can be confusing to modern listeners, as Italy as it is now didn't exist yet and the influence of these groups was mostly in the city states, specifically Florence.
Well done on pronouncing most of these names, I noticed just a couple of errors (the word marchese, the "ch" sound in Italian is a hard sound, so is pronounced markese, for example) but overall you really did a great job with it and I was really impressed with how well you pronounced the word podestà. I studied Latin and Greek in school and I know how hard it is to get those nightmare of accents right!
Well done, looking forward to Purgatorio and Paradiso and if you need help with the pronunciation don't hesitate to reach out! :)
Thank you for your feedback and I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the video! I appreciate the pronunciation tip for marchese. I have picked up on a lot of Italian pronunciation over the years from studying it briefly and having been to Italy and become friends with several Italians, but some sounds still elude me.
Thank you for adding an Italian voice and viewpoint, that was very interesting!! (And your kindness is exemplary.)
This is a badass comment. Thank you for taking the time to write it out.
Great comment too!
Love your videos. youtube needs much more concise, informative history videos without the annoying "youtube editing" tropes
This is wonderful! Thank you for making the effort to pronounce the Italian so well; auguri!
And here I was ready to apologize for my pronunciation
@@studiumhistoriae One consistent error I've noticed is pronouncing "ch" with the English sound, whereas in Italian it would be /k/. Otherwise very immersive.
Enjoying the video anyway, but had to stop a little after the 21:00 minute mark to say, good God -- I would never have dared to _dream_ of someone knowing their stuff well enough to note the Monophysite/Miaphysite distinction! 11/10, three thumbs up, etc.!
Pausing again close to 29:00 -- there are _three_ kinds of sinners, not just two, in the sub-circle of those considered "violent against God": usurers. (Usury isn't _quite_ as simple as charging excessive interest on a loan, though that can be part of it; the details are super irritating to explain.) Some commentator or other, I forget who, said that they were placed there as the imaginative inverse, in Dante's eyes, of those who committed sodomy: where those made sex unnaturally infertile, usurers made money unnaturally _fertile_ (which, again imaginatively, lines up with Aristotle's argument in the _Politics_ for why usury is wrong; in ancient Greek, the normal term for usury was _tokos,_ which literally means "born" or "child").
Womp womp, I should have waited literally one minute! Serves me right for rushing to judgment.
This was both interesting and fun. I had read The Divine Comedy many years ago but was considering reading it again, so this will be very helpful. Thanks!
Thank you for this glossary of the main characters, and subjects of the Devine comedy. It’s a masterful work!
This is a very useful, very important, and fascinating video. Bet it'll get a lot of people to finally appreciate - and properly read - the Comedy. Well done!!
Excellent! The beautiful graphics made it all much easier to follow, and your explanation is very well done. Looking forward to Purgatory.
Very interesting, and detailed. Other then the Dan Brown book,i knew nothing of this. Now I'm intrigued. Need to see more. Thank you
I love how it happens over 3 days it's like Plato philosophical teachings/discussion at a dinner party
35:03 I was really expecting an Office reference in here. Fun video though.
I was very close to putting a picture of Steve Carell
I may have to read this again now that Im older and know who at least some of these people are! I read it decades ago in school for an assignment and got nothing from it because I had zero clue who he was talking about. Thanks for posting!
The first time I watched this I actually fell asleep!
Nothing against your content- I was just watching it at a particular time in the afternoon I tend to drift off over long videos.
Ater that I waited until all three videos were done and now I am watching them as I sew when I need something to pass the time. I am glad that I went back and watched it again. As a history person (as well as a practicing Protestant Christian), it is quite fascinating to me just how much doctrine across various denominations and sects are lore and not Biblical (and just how much of that lore can be traced back to Dante!)
My favorite self insert fan fiction. He basically makes everyone he loves Chad's and everyone he hates soyjacks
The term “fan fiction” isn’t meaningful projected this far back.
Very interesting and informative. Love your videos!
Found this very helpful- thanks for your tenacity!
super informative and detailed, great stuff man 👍
Loved the video! You deserve so many more views.
This is the first time I've ever seen a close up of the painting used to describe hell. I thought it was an upside down cake or something. I love those old paintings of the strange beasts it's really funny what Europeans envisioned foreign people and animals to look like.
Your videos are very enjoyable.
Many thanks for your work from Germany
This is going to be very helpful. I'm working on a study of Infernova. I want to place some modern people in the levels in that book.
Dante and Milton pretty much cafted the concepts of heaven and hell
This was nice, dude. Good job.
The story of Ugolino of Pisa is retold in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but Chaucer makes the names more englishy and calls him 'Hugelyn of Pyzee'
The squad in circle two got me acting unwise.
This is a really well done video.
Brilliant video! Thank you.
I know 1321 is technically in the middle ages, but it's soooooo late in that age and closer to the Renaissance, I personally think it had a greater impact on later generations than the middle ages, I mean look, the middle ages covers a good 1000 years
It's interesting how we only really have interest in Inferno, and relatively little in Paradiso, mainly because it is very dull..
We focus more on bad things than good things
@covenawhite4855 no, we focus on better. Inferno is much better, engaging.
This is really good work thank you
Well done. Great explanation.
I love this video, thanks!
This was so interesting! I'll have to check out the Divine Comedy for myself :DD
The surname Moffatt was first found in Dumfriesshire (Gaelic: Siorrachd Dhùn Phris), a Southern area, bordering on England that today forms part of the Dumfries and Galloway Council Area, at Annandale
Thank you.. damn that was interesting 👍🏼👍🏼
ok, but where they keep cryptoscammers??
With the thieves
👍 His "Old-fashioned Italian" pronunciation is about 85% good, as far as i can tell... He's better than I am; I tend to read all the old stuff with modern pronunciation, which is like reading Shakespeare with an American accent (not good)... Reading Dante aloud, correctly (for Italian people) is like reading Chaucer correctly (for English people)... It's very old and it's almost a different language... The average Italian person today would have major problems understanding it in its original spoken form. (The dialect and grammar of Dante is not only old, it's extinct)... They say he's the "father of Italian language", but honestly, it's almost incomprehensible to modern ears.
Why was Aeneas there, he is the son of Prince Anchises and The goddess Aphrodite, what was his sin, being born?
He mentioned it at the start. Anyone that wasn't baptized goes to hell. So in short, yes.
Judas betrayed Jesus to the Jewish Pharisees, not the romans. The jews later handed him over to the authorities.
I love Dante! Thank you.
Certainly a special kind of fame to be known about hundreds of years after your death but only because one of your political rivals wrote about meeting you in Hell. I'm revealing my age a bit, but I first heard about the O.J. Simpson trial because elder Cunningham meets Jonny Cochran in Hell in the Book of Mormon musical. Maybe in the future, that'll be the only reference to him in culture. 🤔
On that subject, did the two sinners who were still alive have anything to say about the poem, that we know of? I'm sure many of the families of his characters weren't happy about Dante's writing, although I suppose that was part of the point.
Dante must've really had it out for those two to make up a whole theological doctrine just so he could drool over them getting tortured forever.
No responses as far as I'm aware, though one of them was already dead by the time the inferno was actually published. And seeing as he was there because he killed several members of his family, I don't think many of them would have been all too outraged about it.
a demon named "Love Notch" lol.
What do you think of the Jacque le Goff claims in The Birth of the Purgatory? I know it's a bit old and annales academia
Thank you so much
Ok now rank them all in a tier list of who could beat up who
Lol, tempting
'Who are whipped by horned demons' - 'I thought hell supposed to be a miserable place.'
This took me out 😂
(Quoting Prince Edmund the Blackadder)
Hell isn't really as bad as it's cracked up to be. The thing about Heaven is... Heaven is for people who like the sorts of things that go on in Heaven, like... singing... talking to God... watering potted plants. Whereas Hell, Hell you see, is for people who like the other sorts of things... adultery... pillage... torture! Leave your lands to the crown, and once you're dead, you'll have the time of your life!
You got a good voice
Hmmm..
Seems like ole Dante was a little on the petty side?
Nice work though
Very concise 😊
TH-cam definitely listens to my conversations, because I just bought The Divine Comedy.
Like your stuff! Subbed. Decided today I am boycotting AI narrated videos no batter HOW UNIQUE the info might be!!
Scarmiglione/Cagnazzo/Barbariccia/Rubicante
FF players recognize these names.
Brutus is just as pretty as Caesar!
"Denied the immortality of the soul and the efficacy of prayers" based Christianity
Devil may cry was inspired by this especially the main character being named Dante
Marvellous.
Should I read it in Italian? (I donʼt speak Italian)
You probably wouldn't get a whole lot out of it then. Just my hunch
@@studiumhistoriae yeah appreciate it. I only understand Latin so Italian would be too difficult perhaps..
I speak a great deal of French, and I'm going to France for two months in the spring. Over the summer, I took a trip to Italy, which I greatly enjoyed. While there, I went to an exhibition on Paradise, with was underwhelming, even accepting that I could only understand about 1/4 of what was said. But it advertises these amazing illustrated copies, with a full commentary, in three volumes. I've read Clive James' translation of the Comedy, and I'm currently reading Orlando Furioso with my dad, although I'm not very satisfied with the translation. I've gotten really interested in learning Italian, but I should focus on my French for now. I was taught some Spanish, as all Americans, in lower and middleschool.
The penguin edition of 'Inferno' that I have has it in Italian with the translation next to it. That's probably the best way to read it.
Charon (Χάρος)is the ruler of the underworld in greek mythology, not Roman
Saladin was mentioned because despite him being Muslim Saladin did have a great respect for the Christian beliefs
Way cool! I guess I'll be in the Sixth Level and will revel in being a Heretic.
Please do more!
Roman history they thought of the Germanic peoples as barbarians beneath the Roman citizen
Cool
53:55
At the first 1:13 seconds i got the feeling ”im angry at God cause im a loser with no girlfriend” xdd and cleary you dont mean what the Church teaches and professes about the hell since you said something along the lines of ”this what people in the day belived” like somehow it has been ”debunked” by what believe modern sience to have discovered…? Correct?
Shh the adults are talking
Its hard to understand from a secular persepective because back then, the concept of secularizm in government did not exist.....gov. and religion were inseperable....
Aristotle was actually a Macedonian.
Yes, but a Greek Macedonian that was Emperor of Greece
@@locorum9103Aristotle was not an emperor. He was a philosopher. And he was Greek. Stagira was not Macedonian when was born there. It was settled by Ionian Greeks but was conquered by Philip of Macedonia much later.
@@syourke3 Yes, clearly I was thinking of Alexander haha
@35:00 Micheal Scott?
NO!!!! :)
"grafters"? I think he meant "grifters", but ok.
Micheal Scott is in hell ?
One too many "that's what she said"s
@@studiumhistoriaeVerily I say unto thee, it shall be as the lady hath stated unto the masses.
B.C.E ?? No thanks, especially when your subject is 99% about Christianity. Quit being scared of offending people, when you’ve in fact, offended me.
🤘😘🔥
Tbh Inferno was a jerk.
Schi = [ski]
I can't help think what level Trump will end up. Listening to your description he belongs on so many levels. I guess he will just go to the bottom.
Traitor to his country sounds about right
Get a life.
Matthew 7:3-5
U probably won't believe this but I was thinking the same thing but I was gonna shut up n keep it to myself. Thanx😂
Right where Hilary , Biden , and all the other nut job liberals like yourself will be
God bless
Thanks for making this. I'll be honest, I fucking hate the premise of the divine comedy. The idea of someone presuming to have knowledge of the afterlife and allotting to themselves the authority to meet out divine justice is as sacrilegious as it is nauseatingly self-righteous. Dante just comes off as the biggest piece of shit, coping with his own failures by creating a fantasy where he gets to pass judgement on everyone and their grandmother. Even so, learning about the historical context of it all is a lot of fun. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Dante, or at least his selfinsert, is more nuanced than many summaries of the Divine Comedy would have you believe, especially since it is often tongue in cheekly described as revenge porn. Dante does sometimes salavate over the torments of the Blaze, such as when Filipe Argenti accosts Dante on his boatride. But Dante, or, again, at least his selfinstert, is often horrified or moved by the suffering he witnesses, most notably when he faints hearing the story of Paolo and Francesca. Dante frequently comes across people he respects. There are of course all the heathens in Limbo, who're mostly little more than unlucky, plus all the unbaptized babies who're there for the crime of dying. But even people like Brunetto Latini suffer greatly, although Brunetto enjoys a good bit more dignity than many of the other sinners. To spoil the Divine Comedy, because this isn't a story built around plot twists, Dante later puts two pagans in heaven, one because God brought him back to life so the man could be converted, underscoring how the whole afterlife is completely unfair.
I do recommend the Divine Comedy if you're interested in the medieval world. Summaries don't do it justice, since they have to leave out so much. There's a battle of wits between Dante and one of the guys in the flaming coffins. There's a fart joke. The scene where the angel rescues Dante gave me chills. If you're interested, there's a rapping translation of the first 10 cantos of Inferno on TH-cam.
As much as you hate something, anyone with the intelligence of Dante doesn't presume to know absolute truth. It's about expressing your Self, from your perspective.. or in other words, art. You can't hate someone's art though. It's their perspective, and who's to say their perspective is any more 'wrong' than yours?
You do realize it's a work of fiction?
@@charlesfisher83I’m sure when he says dante seems like a piece of shit he’s inferring to the actual author who self inserted and not the character
What about the Purgatorio and Paradisio
Interesting.
Btw: just so you know, the terms "BCE/CE" are highly offensive to Christians, and especially so in the context of discussion of Dante, the most Christian of poets.
What if I told you I usually use it to mean before the Christian era / Christian era. I don't usually use Before Christ and Anno Domini because those are statements of faith which are incompatible for certain groups (especially Jews, who came up with BCE in the 1800s). I do believe that it makes little sense to say "common era," since it is a means of dividing time which is inherently tied to Christianity, but I prefer to frame it in such a way that those who do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah can still participate in.
If we are going to use this method of calculating years as a universal chronology, it ought to be as inclusive as possible. I take no issue with others using BC/AD, and in fact I use it colloquially all the time, but in my videos, because I am making them for everyone, I have consciously chosen the more inclusive notation.
Will it hold all the progressives and democrats? Let's hope so.
No, but the rights and republicans 😂