Inferno VIII: "Seize Filippo Argenti!"

Inferno VIII: "Seize Filippo Argenti!"

Ink on paper, 2016

22 x 15”

Dante encounters the Florentine politician Filippo Argenti, and the wrathful cease their violent battle to consolidate their attacks on him. Argenti then begins to tear at himself in due course, making quite a bloody scene.

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The wrathful turn on Filippo Argenti, but he literally beats them to the punch, tearing at his own flesh in a frenzy. In Bocaccio's Decameron, Argenti's ire is raised by a practical joke played by Ciacco,  It's been said that Filippo Argenti once slapped Dante, that his brother had claimed Dante's possessions after his exile, and that the whole Argenti family opposed Dante's return. Dante held some pretty big grudges and the Hollanders explain the character in this gloss from their edition of L'Inferno.

“From the cries of others the reader finally learns the name of this sinner (Dante has known exactly who he is—see v. 39). Filippo Argenti was a Black Guelph from a powerful Florentine family. His real name was Filippo Adimari de’ Cavicciuoli, but he supposedly was known as Filippo Argenti because he had his horse’s hooves shod in silver (argento). A number of early commentators relate that his brother, Boccaccino, got hold of Dante’s possessions when the poet was exiled. If that is true, we have here a pretty clear case of authorial revenge upon a particularly hated enemy. See Francesco Forti, “Filippo Argenti,” ED, vol. 2, 1970, pp. 873–76.”

Excerpt From: Dante, Robert Hollander & Jean Hollander. “The Inferno.” 

Inferno VII: The Wrathful Smite Each Other in the River Styx

Inferno VII: The Wrathful Smite Each Other in the River Styx

Ink on paper, 2016

22 x 15”

Canto seven includes a scene of great ferocity, as those whose anger and spiteful nature guided them in life are condemned to beat, kick and bite one another while floating in the River Styx.

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Dante had a ferocious sense of humor and this is evidenced throughout L'Inferno, wherein he subjects friend and foe alike to dreadful fates—punishments ranging from the inconvenient to the inhumane. He reserved a great deal of his ire for political rivals who are eternally tortured, burned and humiliated in the bowels of Hell. And, while he pitied the misfortune of the timing, he added historical figures who (sometimes merely because they were born before Christianity was in flower) were doomed to lives of boredom, aimlessness or shame. 

In one of my favorite scenes, dozens of furious souls are damned to partake in a raging battle in the bloody River Styx in Canto Seven. Arriving on the scene he sees all manner of chaos and carnage happening among the participants—an angry, mud-soaked mob immersed in the bloody waters, biting, kicking, drowning, punching and slapping each other. 

And yet, somehow this scene carries with it a terrific sense of absurdity, and it's tough to explain why. I suppose the very notion of people immersed in blood, attacking one another with utter malice is terrifying, but somehow it's worth a chuckle:

In la palude va c’ha nome Stige

questo tristo ruscel, quand’ è disceso

al piè de le maligne piagge grige.

E io, che di mirare stava inteso,

vidi genti fangose in quel pantano,

ignude tutte, con sembiante offeso.

Queste si percotean non pur con mano,

ma con la testa e col petto e coi piedi,

troncandosi co’ denti a brano a brano.

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It becomes a swamp by the name of Styx,

this sorry brook, when it descends

at the foot of the malignant, grey shore.

And I, who stood intent,

saw muddy people in the quagmire,

all of them naked and inflamed.

They struck each other not only with their

hands, but with their heads, breasts and feet,

and tore each other piece by piece with their teeth.

For me, head butts are entirely reminiscent of the theatrical absurdity of pro wrestling, and Dante's refined and shocked countenance adds a bit more to the spectacle.