Divine Comedy's Inferno Characters

Dante: Dante, as he wrote himself, appears to be a man of passionately held opinions.

Virgil: This Roman poet wrote the Aeneid, which dealt in part with the adventures of Aeneas, who descended to the underworld. Unlike Dante, Virgil is a true inhabitant of Hell: he is a damned soul, though a virtuous man. This colors his character with a calm despair which is not seen in the fiery Florentine.

Beatrice: Dante's idealized beloved, Beatrice, appears very little in the Inferno.

The heavenly messenger (Canto IX): The messenger is sent by God to make the fallen angels in Dis let Dante and Virgil in.

Charon (Canto III): Charon is the demon who ferries souls across the Acheron into Hell.

Minos (Canto V): Minos is a terrible demon who judges the damned souls and decides where in Hell they will be punished. He is a figure from Classical mythology: he was the son of Zeus and Europa.

Cerberus (Canto VI): Cerberus is a doglike demon in the third circle. Virgil calms him by throwing mud into his mouth.

Plutus (Canto VII): Plutus is a wolf-like demon who praises Satan in a grating voice. Plutus is a Pagan figure, strongly connected with avarice. In Roman mythology he is the king of the underworld; here he is merely a servant of the Devil, whose cry probably means: "Oh Satan, oh Satan, the most powerful one!"

Phleygas (Canto VIII): Phleygas is the boat-man of the river Styx, like Charon for the Acheron. He resentfully ferries Dante and Virgil across.

The Furies (Canto IX): Women with snakes for hair from Classical mythology. Their names are Megaera, Allecto, and Tisiphone.

Geryon (Canto XVII): is a monster who symbolizes fraud itself. His face was human, gracious and honest-looking, but his body was a combination of a bear and a serpent, and his tail had a scorpion's sting.

The Malebranche: This name refers to a group of devils who patrol the lake of pitch where the barrators are punished in Malebolge. They are fierce-looking and dangerous bit not very smart. The name means "evil-claws," and is also a family name in Lucca. Individual Malebranche are:
Malacoda: "evil-tail."
Alichino: same root as "harlequin."
Calcabrina: "he who can walk on brine."
Cagnazzo: "big dog," also a family name in Lucca.
Libicocco: "winds," from the two winds libeccio and sirocco.
Barbariccia: "curly beard."
Draghignazzo: "big dragon."
Circiatto: "hog."
Farfarello: "evil ghost."
Rubicante: "he who grows red."
Graffiacane: "he who scratches dogs," also a family name from Lucca.

Nimrod: is a huge giant who talks in an unknown tongue and blows a huge bugle. In the Bible, he ruled in Babylon when the Tower of Babel was built ­ it was supposed to be tall enough to reach the sky.

Briareus and Ephialtes: rebelled against the Olympian gods, who dealt with them in much the same way as the Biblical god dealt with Nimrod.

Antaneus: was born after the rebellion, therefore he is unfettered, though still imprisoned.

Homer: is the great Greek epic poet.

Horace (65-8 BC): was a Roman satirist-moralist.

Ovid (43 BC- 17 AD): was the Roman author of the Metamorphoses.

Lucan (39-65): was another Roman poet.

Electra: was the mother of Dardanus, who founded Troy.

Hector: was the peace-loving but warlike prince of Troy who was killed by Achilles with divine aid in Homer's Iliad.

Aeneas: is the subject of Virgil's Aeneid. A Trojan, he escaped from his city after its fall, and after living with and abandoning Dido, the Queen of Carthage, he went to Italy.

Julius Caesar: was the Roman leader whose rule ended the republic. He was assassinated by

Brutus and Cassius (found in Judecca).

Camilla: died defending her homeland, Latium.

Penthesilea: was the Queen of the Amazons who was killed by Achilles.

King Latinus: was the king of Latium.

Lavinia: was Latinus' daughter and she married Aeneas.

Lucius Junius Brutus: (not the one who killed Caesar), drove out Tarquin the Proud, the last Roman king, in 510 BC. Lucretia's death prompted Brutus' action after she committed suicide after having been raped by Tarquin.

Julia: was the daughter of Caesar and Pompey's wife.

Marcia: was Cato's virtuous wife.

Cornelia: was an exemplary mother.

Saladin: was the Sultan of Egypt from 1171 to 1193. Though he was Muslim, he was famous among Christians for his nobility.

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle: were all Greek philosophers. Aristotle was particularly venerated during the medieval and early Renaissance period. Democritus, Empedocles, Zeno, Diogenes, Thales, Anaxoragas and Heraclitus were also philosophers, though less well known.

Averroes (1126-1198): was an Arabian philosopher who commented on the works of Aristotle.
Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen (2nd century), and Avicenna (980-1037): were all physicians whose works influenced the medicine of Dante's time very much.

Orpheus and Linus: are mythological Greek poets and musicians.

Tully, Cicero and Seneca: were Roman moral poets.

Euclid (around 300 BC): was a mathematician and Ptolemy (2nd century BC) was an astronomer whose geocentric conception of the universe was very influential.

Semiramis: was an immoral queen of Assyria, and is supposed to have legalized incest.
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt: she had both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony as lovers. She committed suicide to avoid being taken captive by the Romans.

Helen: the most beautiful woman in the world and the queen of Sparta, was abducted by Paris, starting the Trojan War.

Achilles: fought heroically in theTrojan War, but unpatriotically stopped when he found he couldn't have the female captive he wanted.

Tristan: was a knight of medieval romance who fell magically in love with his patron's queen, Ysolde. They died because of their love.

Dido: queen of Carthage, loved Aeneas and killed herself when he abandoned her.
Francesca da' Rimini and Paolo Malatesta: The historical identities of Francesca and her lover are well known. Francesca da Rimini was married around 1275 to Gianciotto Malatesta of Rimini for political reasons. She unfortunately fell in love with her husband's younger brother Paolo ­ and he with her. When her husband discovered their adultery, probably in 1285, he killed them both.

Ciacco: a gluttonous Florentine who predicts some of Florence's political future for Dante.

Filippo Argenti: Filippo Argenti is a Florentine who tries to attack Dante, and is later attacked by his fellow-sinners.

Pope Anastasius: Dante believed Anastasius (496-498) to be a follower of Photinus's heresy, which held that Christ was not divine.

The Minotaur: is a figure from Greek mythology: he was half man and half bull, the offspring of a bull and the Queen of Crete, Pasiphae, who was cursed with insane love for the bull and had a hollow cow built, in which the Minotaur was conceived.

Nessus: tried to rape Deianira, Hercule's wife, and was shot for it with a poisoned arrow. In revenge, Nessus gave Deianira a robe dipped in his blood, which he said would make the wearer fall in love with her. When Hercules was in love with Iole, Deianira gave him the robe, which poisoned him and made him die in agony.

Chiron: was a somewhat different centaur, the tutor of Achilles, a wise and cultivated being: thus he is the one Virgil wants to talk to.

Alexander: is probably Alexander the Great of Macedon (356-323 BC), who made great conquests in a short lifetime.

Dionysius the Elder: was tyrant of Syracuse from 405 to 367 BC (not to be confused with the God of wine).

Ezzelino III (1194-1259): a Ghibelline, massacred the citizens of Padua.
Obizzo II d'Este (1247-1293): was a Guelph who may have been killed by his own son.

The two Riniers: were famous highwaymen.

Pier della Vigna (1190-1249): was the minister, private secretary and counselor of Frederick II until he fell into disfavor and was put in prison and blinded.

Lano: is probably Arcolano of Siena, who belonged to the Spendthrift Club, a group of young noblemen who wasted time and money on frivolous and extravagent entertainments.

The anonymous Florentine suicide: is a thorn bush broken during Jacopo's flight from the black hounds. Little is known about him except that he hanged himself.

Capaneus: was one of the seven legendary kings who beseiged Thebes. Apparently Capaneus boasted that even Jove couldn't stop him, and was hit by a thunderbolt in retribution. In Hell he is still proud and rebellious against God.

Ser Brunetto Brunetto Latini (1220-1294): a Guelph Florentine, was a famous political leader and writer. He wrote an encyclopedia in French, called Li Livres dou tresor, and an Italian poem, the Tesoretto. Although Brunetto was not actually Dante's teacher, he seems to have been an important influence and a close friend. Dante treats him with affection and respect.

Priscian of Cesarea: was a Latin grammarian of the Middle Ages.

Francesco d'Accorso: was a lawyer at Bologna and Oxford.

Andrea de'Mozzi: the Bishop of Florence was transferred for his scandalous lifestyle by the Pope Boniface VIII (the Servant of His servants) to Vicenza. He died soon after, apparently worn out by sodomy (his tendons strained by sin).
Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, Jacopo Rusticucci: These three Florentine sodomites were all famous and honorable political leaders, evidently well respected by Dante despite their personal sins.

The usurers: are punished by having to sit on flaming sand with flakes of fire falling on them. They include members of the families Gianfigliazzi, Obriachi and Scrovegni. Reginaldo Scrovegni' s son tried to atone for his father's ill-gotten wealth by commissioning the great painter Giotto to paint a chapel named for him.

The panders and seducers: are whipped by demons.

Venedico Caccianemico: is supposed to have delivered his own sister Ghisolabella to the lustful designs of a Marquis. In fact he was not yet dead when the Inferno supposedly takes place; Dante was probably unaware of this.

Jason: was a hero in Greek legend who voyaged on his ship the Argo with his companions, the Argonauts. They stopped at the island of Lemnos, where the women had killed the men, except for Hypsipyle who had saved her father's life; Jason seduced and abandoned her. Medea, a princess of a different island, turned against her own people to help Jason in his quest, and was also abandoned; she avenged herself by killing the children she had had with Jason.

Flatterers: were punished by being put in a pit full of human excrement.

Alessio Interminei of Lucca: whom Dante had a hard time recognizing because of his filthiness, was there because of his flatteries.

Thais: was a harlot who had said that she was very grateful to her lover.

Pope Nicholas III: Pope Nicholas III was elected in 1277 and died in 1280; his reference to cubs of the she-bear refers to his family name, Orsini.

Tiresias: was a soothsayer in Greek mythology who turned from a man into a woman and back again.

Amphiaraus: is another of the seven kings who fought Thebes. He foresaw his death and tried to avoid battle, but died in an earthquake all the same.

Manto: was a Theban soothsayer who legendarily founded Mantua.

Michael Scot and Guido Bonatti: were court astrologers and Asdente was a shoemaker who prophecied in Parma at the end of the 13th century.

The Navarrese barrator: had been damned fortaking graft in the household of King Thibault. His trickery and successful escape from the Malebranche give a rare example of human success over immortals, and a bending from the inexorable divine will.

Two Italian barrators: were Fra Gomito of Gallura who was a sovereign swindler, and also another Sardinian, Don Michele Zanche (whose murderer can be found in the ninth circle).

Caiaphas: was the high Jewish priest under Pontius Pilate, the Roman who oversaw Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified.

Vanni Fucci: stole from the treasury of San Jacopo, which was kept in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Pistoia. Rampino Foresi was accused of the crime and was nearly executed, while Fucci escaped.

Cianfa Donati and Agnello de' Brunelleschi: were both noble Florentine thieves. Apparently Cianfa is the snake who combines with Agnello. Puccio Sciancato was from a noble Ghibelline family in Galigai. Francesco de' Cavalcanti was murdered bythe people of the town Gaville, and his family in revenge killed almost everyone in Gaville.

Ulysses (or Odysseus in the Greek form): was a crafty member of the Greek army which beseiged Troy after the Trojan prince Paris ran off with the Spartan queen Helen.

Guido da Montefeltro (1220-1298): a famous Ghibelline leader who became a friar, was damned because he trusted Boniface's unconditional absolution of his sins (he was a crafty and unscrupulous commander).

Mohammed: is of course the founder of Islam, and Ali is his nephew and successor.

Fra Dolcino: founded an order called the Apostolic Brothers, which believed in holding goods and women in common.

The Ghibelline Mosca de' Lamberti: was mentioned in Canto VI. He helped create the feud between the Ghibellines and the Guelfs when in 1215 he advised the Amidei family to kill a Guelph, Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, for breaking his engagement to be married to an Amidei girl.

Bertran de Born (1140-1215): was a troubadour poet among other things ­ his beautiful works deserve to be read if they can be obtained ­ and was thought by some to have incited Prince Henry to rebell against his father Henry II.

Geri del Bello: Dante's father's cousin, was a troublemaker who was killed by a Sacchetti. He was finally avenged in 1310, and the pointless feud begun between the Alighieri and the Sacchetti lasted until 32 years later.

Griffolino of Arezzo: cheated Albero of Siena by claiming that he could teach him to fly for a large sum of money. He was burned as a heretic by Albero's protector (and perhaps his father), the Bishop of Siena.

Capocchio: was burned at the stake for alchemy in 1293.

Gianni Schicci: impersonated Simone Donati's uncle Buoso Donati, who had just died: on Simone's request, Gianni, pretending to be Buoso, dictated a new will in favor of Simone. He also left himself Buoso's best mare, the lady of the herd.

Myrrha: daughter of the king of Cyprus, fell incestuously in love with her father, and impersonated another woman so as to sleep with him. When she was discovered, she fled execution, and was changed into a myrrh tree by the gods.

Master Adam: was a counterfeiter whose body is swollen up with dropsy. He longs for revenge on the people who prompted him to counterfeit coins.

Sinon: tricked the Trojans into bringing the wooden horse filled with Greek soldiers into Troy (see Canto XXVI).

The wife of Potiphar: falsely accused Joseph of making advances toward her.

The two sons: of the Florentine noble Alberto degli Alberti are Napoleone and Alessandro.
Napoleone was a Ghibelline and Alessandro was Guelph; they murdered each other between 1282 and 1286.

Mordred: Arthur's nephew (and according to some versions, his incestuously conceived son), tried to seize power in England and was killed by his uncle for his treachery.

Focaccia: was a noble White Guelph who murdered his cousin. Sassol Mascheroni also murdered a relative.

Camiscion de' Pazzi: shared a fortress with Ubertino until he murdered him. He hopes that Carlino will "absolve him" because Carlino was a member of his family who had committed a graver act of treachery which would make his own appear less serious by contrast: Carlino betrayed his party (the Whites).

Bocca degli Abati: was another Guelph who betrayed his party

Count Ugolino: is a tragic figure who is frightening in the depth of his hatred. He and his children were starved to death by the Archbishop Ruggieri ­ whose head he eats in Hell. His sorrow for the slow deaths of his sons and grandsons, and his despair at his own inability to help them fuel an undying hatred for their murderer.

Fra Alberigo: was a Jovial Friar who had his relatives Manfred and Manfred's son killed during a banquet. He summoned the assassins by ordering figs. He resents his punishment: when he says that his figs have been repaid with dates, he is complaining that his punishment is too severe: dates were more expensive than figs.

Branca Doria: killed his father-in-law Michele Zanche (see Canto XXII) during a banquet.
Judas Iscariot: was the apostle who betrayed Christ. In the Bible he identified Christ for his enemies by kissing him for thirty pieces of silver

Marcus Junius Brutus: and Gaius Cassius Longus assassinated Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and both committed suicide two years later.