Thread by @VeraCausa9

A thread on Dante's Inferno, Canto XXXIII:

Deep inside the 9th Circle of Hell, these carved hands are consumed by the black pit of despair where hope is no more ...

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux -Ugolino and His Sons-marble 1865–67 [hands details]

Count Ugolino gnawing at Archbishop Ruggieri's skull reveals Hell's Law of contrapasso or "suffer the opposite": In life Ruggieri sinned by brutally starving Ugolino & his sons so in Hell his skull becomes a fiero pasto or a "fierce meal" consumed in eternal damnation.

The above artwork is Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's striking study in terracotta of Ugolino devouring the skull of archbishop Ruggieri ca. 1861 at Musée d'Orsay [1]

Like spiritual bread,Ugolino's sons horrifying yet selfless offering to their father to eat of them alludes to the Eucharistic redemptive sacrifice in John 6:54-56

Padre, assai ci fia men doglia
se tu mangi di noi

"Father, it would be far less painful for us
if you ate of us"

John 6:54-56 (NKJV)

"Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is [a]food indeed, and My blood is [b]drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him." [1]

After 600 yrs we still ask this heart-wrenching question: Did Ugolino really succumb to cannibalism by eating his dead children?

Poscia, più che 'l dolor, poté 'l digiuno

"And then fasting [hunger] had more
power than even sorrow over me"

-Dante, Inferno, Canto XXXIII

According to historical chronicles of the time when the bodies of Ugolino & his sons were retrieved from the tower's cell in Pisa, they're badly "rat-bitten", maybe they ate one another's flesh or worse that Ugolino in his intolerable anguish resorted to hellish cannibalism.

Dante alludes to Paul (Gal. 5:15): Ugolino & Ruggieri enmity of feeding off each other's hatred in life and when they're enclosed in a hellish ditch [Circle of Treachery] has a political/civic dimension by which man's relationship to man is not of communion but of cannibalism.

The Letter of Paul to the Galatians: Galatians 5:2-15 ((KJV)

"But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." [1]

Augustinian view on Canto XXXIII in Dante's Inferno:

Eternal City of God vs the temporal city of man mirrors the moral principles Concordia vs discordia, likewise Ugolino/Ruggieri's hungering vengeance transforms the Christian hope of communitas angeli into L'uomo bestiale .

Domenico di Michelino-Dante holding La Divina Commedia-1465 at Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence [1]

For those who would like to read Dante's Divine Comedy [Inferno/ Purgatorio/ Paradiso] I highly recommend you Allen Mandelbaum's brilliant English verse translation with Dante's original Italian side-by-side, an essential component to better understand Dante.

Finishing this Dantean thread with a vintage book from my collection:

Dante Alighieri La Divina Commedia: Inferno [1st of a set] published by Ulrico Hoepli, Editore Libraio Della Real Casa Milano, 1911.