Canto XXIV of Dante’s Inferno

Canto XXIV is where the readers see Virgil and Dante enter the Seventh Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell.

Here they see thieves. These sinners are naked and masses of serpents surround them. The serpents continually bind and bite the sinners. Once they are bitten, the sinners immediately catches fire, burns in flames and are reduced to ashes. From the ashes, the sinners are formed again into human flesh and the torment repeats.

While Dante and Virgil moves on there are variations on the burning as both serpent and sinner exchange substances and transform into each other’s form horribly.Canto XXIV is the most important Canto in Dante’s Inferno because it summarized the historical, allegorical and literary aims of the author. The success of this piece of literature can be illustrated by this Canto alone. For one, the description of the relationship of the thieves and the serpents symbolizes the literary format the author used in the book. The serpent also commonly known as the snake is a creature that has both good and bad connotations but Dante used the snake as a symbol of a bad virtue. Thieves have been connoted as snakes.

The writer DH Lawrence has a poem entitled “Snake” wherein like in Dante’s Inferno is seen living in the underworld. Lawrence in his own literature emphasized the serpent’s surreptitious lifestyle that is hidden in darkness of life, wallowing in the emptiness of the world. In the lines, “For he seemed to me like a king. Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld. ” (lines 69 and 70). The serpent is like a thief where to be able to succeed in stealing, has to hide his true motives and appear rid of sin.

Most parts of the book successfully takes a sinner into that part of Hell that as the sin becomes grave, the punishment becomes equitable to the sin. The reader is also guided by the parallelism of the sin to the punishment. For Canto XXIV, on its later part, the author depicts the thieves and the serpents as exchanging substances which literally shows that the author regards thieves as snakes. And these are also seen in other Cantos. If you are a glutton, your punishment will be eating excrement.

If one is lustful in their life, all blown away by the passions of the loins, in hell, the punishment will be doomed to ferocious storms.This for one proves the author’s ingenius use of symmetry in symbolisms. Second, mentioning Vanni Fucci as a sinner found in this Canto clearly narrates the success of the book in narrating the historical situation of the times. The book becomes both a creative statement against corruption happening in Florence and soon after centuries, the book becomes a creative historic account. The book is full of characters that are found in that era of Florence where Dante was banished.

Vanni Fucci in Canto XXIV is a Tuscan whom Dante knew.He foretells the loss of Dante’s politicall party in Pistoia called the White Guelphs. Vanni Fucci is a soul who is punished in hell for stealing the sacristy of Saint James in Pistoia. Historically during the beginning of the renaissance much turbulent time were experienced in Florence, then center of emerging renaissance culture.

Dante was one of the prominent people whom the clergy was afraid of and so when he went away on a trip, he was banned to get inside the city once again by the bishops afraid that Dante would be leading a revolt.In real life, Vanni Fucci was the bastard son of Fuccio de Lazzeri. Lazzeri was a Black Guelph in Pistoia who in 1293 robbed the cathedral of its treasures. Historically, in 1302, the Blacks and the Whites Guelphs battled in Piceno.

The book in close study will get the readers to understand historical Florence and the political scenarios that are very much incorporated into the book. And the author is very proud of this ability that he succeeds in. For example in Canto XXIV, Dante mentions Ovid and Lucan, two great writers that he feels he has outdone through The Inferno.Ovid is the writer of Metamorphoses that focuses on transformations while Lucan who wrote Pharsalia is an account of the turmoils that the Roman political transition had to go through during the first century BC.

Dante is proud as written in this Canto that he has integrated both poet’s style and creativity in The Inferno. By using his own mythological inventions and vivid imagery, Dante is finally able to secure immortality among the great master poets of his time and up till the modern times.Thirdly, allegorically, the Canto XXIV explains relationship between Virgil and Dante as guide and tourist, or mentor and student. All throughout the book, the mentor and student relationship between Virgil and Dante symbolize the mentor student relationship evident in the Catholic system of faith.

If God is the mentor, the sinners are the students. If Dante is the mentor who is also exiled, his students are his followers in his own home who are suffering at the hands of corrupt people whom Dante is able to condemn to Hell in his poem.These corrupt people occupy high political and religious positions. In his book he is able to banish them and inflict pain for their sins against Florence and against humanity in general. This Canto XXIV is the most important Canto because it in this Canto, the author is able to prove how masterfully he can blend elements from the Christian era and mythology of the Greeks.

Dante closely observes the many sides of Virgil. From being a master of bestial emotions of anger and torment, Virgil becomes a mentor who is able to control his anger with wisdom.As the author illustrates how powerful rays of winter sun is able to melt winter snow, he is able to share to his readers his appreciation of the will and that reason will champion ignorant emotions and give it self-control. As noble guide, Virgil moves on ahead of Dante to find safe path.

The road to hell was becoming more difficult to pass and Dante had to endure physical exhaustion. But without physical sacrifice there will be no wisdom. Throughout the book, glimpses of wisdom are incorporated into the poem that makes the book a timeless piece of advice for all scholars of morality, wisdom and perseverance.During Dante’s time much persecution was being done to religion not because of what it teaches but due to the corruption evidently corroding the system. The people needed new mentors that will show them the real warmth of the love of God.

It is also in this Canto that the warmth of God is given first insight. As much as Hell was a fiery place, Virgil and Dante will find utter and bitter coldness at the central pit where the worse sinner dwell punished in the absence of warmth from the light. Geographically, as one travels deeper and deeper in the core of the Earth, one gets also farther away from the sun.The book by virtue of its organization of its geographic Hell, helps the reader get an insight on the amount of tension between science and religion during Dante’s time where the movement of the sun, the moon and the Earth, together will its places and physicality had yet to be confirmed by science and realized by religion. All the Cantos are memorable.

Some Cantos are more visually stimulating but Canto XXIV is the most important Canto. Knowing Canto XXIV will equip the readers ample knowledge of the aims of Dante and how he successfully achieves this aims masterfully as poet, historian and philosopher of his time.