Farinata

The episode in the Divine Comedy where Dante and Virgil discover Farinata degli Uberti’s fate in the Sixth Circle of Hell (Canto X) has proved irresistible to artists. The setting, in the City of Dis, is a plain dotted with burning, open tombs. Though Dante’s birth postdates the Ghibelline (a supporter of the Holy Roman Emperor over the Pope) aristocrat and military leader’s death by one year, Farinata and Dante – a Guelph – are natural political enemies. Doré illustrates the moment they meet, when Farinata rises to be visible 'from waist to head' [Inferno: X, 33]. Dante writes: "I reached the vault’s foot, and he scanned my face / A little while, and then said, with an air / Almost contemptuous: “What’s thy name and race?"" [40-42]. An argument ensues, interrupted as another figure, Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, rises from below 'visible down to the chin' (52-3). While absent from Doré’s image, William Blake includes him and, in Dante’s poem, Cavalcanti’s desperation to learn the fate of his son, Guido – a dear friend of Dante’s – shifts the focus from the political to the personal. Both men, however, are in hell as heretics: both were obsessed with earthly matters and neglected the spiritual.