Dante, il Conte Ugolino e l'Arcivescovo Ruggieri

The Dantean inferno is a kind of life manual No other literary work has better defined the nature of sin Dante and Virgil begin their final descent into the ninth and last circle the frozen abyss of Satan The inferno is dark The sun and warmth are absent Those who have committed evil are devoid of moral energy Sin is therefore the absence of the soul As a result in the deepest part of hell there is a complete absence of heat Everything is dead and cold It is the extreme negativity The punishment for traitors those who have corrupted faith and love is a frozen lake They are the perpetrators of betrayal against the family and the homeland Here the punishment is extreme The sinners are not only imprisoned in hell but they cannot even move They are condemned to remain forever in that terrible place At the center of hell is not only the one who has not loved his neighbor And even those who have betrayed someone they loved On the ice swept by the wind Dante and Virgilio meet two sinners bound together Just as Paolo and Francesca are bound by love so the count Ugolino and the archbishop Ruggeri are bound by hatred Their hatred is such that Count Ugolino is intent on eating the brain of his enemy In Dante's time there were many rivalries between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines and Ruggeri had Count Ugolino locked in a tower To die of hunger together with children and grandchildren As she watched her children die her love for them turned into hatred for her enemy In the end if what animates the world is love and love is God then at the opposite pole we will find absolute hatred Cannibalism is a way to represent this hatred Stopping his gruesome meal the sinner raises his head and wipes his mouth With the remaining hair on the scalp which is receding at the back Then he says As Ugolino tells Dante what happened to his sons he renews his sorrow but also his hatred Ugolino is the last damned soul with whom Dante speaks in hell From all of them the image of the count eating his enemy's skull is an icon of unsatisfied revenge Frustrating and pointless It is also a kind of farewell by Dante to his thirst for revenge