Inferno · Canto XXI ·
Inferno XXI — The Pitch Cauldron
Reading Divine Comedy · canto 21 of 100 · Inferno, Canto XXI
Before reading
The fifth bolgia. The eighth circle's typology of fraud now reaches the barrators — those who, holding public office, sold the offices and acts of government for private gain. Barratry is the secular twin of simony: the priest who sold sacred office (canto XIX) and the magistrate who sold civic office are punished one bolgia apart, and the punishments rhyme. The simoniacs had their feet on fire; the barrators have their whole bodies submerged in boiling pitch. The canto is the first of a two-canto sequence (XXI and XXII) that together form the Inferno's longest tonal departure: a long episode played in something close to low comedy, with a named cast of devils.
Where the canto sits
The canto opens on a meta-comic note. From bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things of which my Comedy cares not to sing, we came along. The narrator declines to record what the two poets talked about. The reader is being put on notice that the canto is in a different register. Lower Hell is, increasingly, a place where the Comedy allows itself the freedoms of the comic mode — base language, slapstick violence, an undignified parade of devils with rude names.
What it helps to know
The grand opening simile is one of the Inferno's most concrete pictures of contemporary industry: the Arsenal of Venice, the great state-run shipyard that made the Venetian navy in the early fourteenth century the largest industrial operation in Europe. Dante describes its winter routine — the boiling of pitch for the recaulking of hulls — in eleven detailed lines. The image will hold over the canto: the bolgia below boils a pitch identical to the Venetian shipwrights' pitch, not by fire, but by the art divine. The reader is meant to see the lower Hell as an industrial infrastructure of damnation.
The first soul thrown into the pitch is a Lucchese, one of the elders of Saint Zita — that is, a city magistrate of Lucca, where St Zita was the patron saint of domestic servants and her city was well furnished with corrupt politicians. The devil who throws him in delivers one of the canto's signature lines: all there are barrators, except Bonturo. Bonturo Dati was in fact the most notoriously corrupt politician in Lucca; the line is sarcastic. The whole canto carries this register of civic insult.
Dante's own exile in 1302 was on a charge of baratteria — corruption in office during his term as one of the six Florentine priors in 1300. The charge was political (it came from his Black Guelph enemies after they seized Florence with the help of Boniface VIII and Charles of Valois), but the charge stuck and Dante was condemned in absentia, with the threat of being burned alive should he ever return to Florence. The canto is therefore, at a level Dante does not name, the canto on the crime of which the poet himself was accused. The dark comedy of its devils is the comedy of a man who knows what it feels like to be called a barrator.
The devils are introduced by name. The chief is Malacoda — Bad-Tail — and his subordinates carry the names that have echoed through Italian poetry ever since: Alichino, Calcabrina, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia, Libicocco, Draghignazzo, Ciriatto Sannuto (Tusked), Graffiacane, Farfarello, Rubicante. The names are coined out of dog-words, scratch-words, and small barnyard rhymes. The reader is meant to feel the satirical degradation of the supernatural: these are not angels of darkness; they are thugs with playground names.
What to read for
Listen to the Venetian opening. The eleven-line simile of the Arsenal is one of the most detailed contemporary-industrial passages in any medieval European poem. Dante had probably visited Venice. The detail is reportage as well as comparison.
Notice Virgil's procedure with Malacoda. He uses the same formula — it in Heaven is willed — that he used with Charon (canto III) and Minos (canto V) to override Hell's gatekeepers. The formula has been the Comedy's standard procedure for getting past obstacles. Here, the formula works, but only barely — and the devils' compliance, the canto will hint, is not entirely sincere.
And listen for the canto's last line. The poem is willing to close on a fart. The line that ends canto XXI — and he had made a trumpet of his rump — is one of the most quoted scatological tercets in medieval European literature, and it is delivered with the same gravity Dante uses for the inscription on the gate of Hell. The reader is in a different country now.
From here on: illustrations and analysis. The three images below are scenes from the canto, and after them comes the close reading — famous lines quoted in full, paradoxes explained, political and theological freight unpacked. If you have not yet read the canto, stop here — read it, then come back.
After reading
What the canto did
The canto changed the Inferno's register. After the inwardness and high seriousness of the canto on the diviners — Virgil's long monologue, the rebuke of pity, the careful naming of classical seers — canto XXI opened a comic episode that runs for nearly three hundred lines (this canto and the next), with a cast of named devils that has no precedent in medieval literature. The canto's structural job is to walk the pilgrim through the fifth bolgia (the barrators) and to set up the next; its tonal job is to demonstrate that the Comedy is willing to drop, deliberately, into low comedy in the service of moral satire. The canto opens with a piece of carefully observed industrial reporting (the Arsenal of Venice), proceeds to a slapstick of devil and damned (the Lucchese magistrate thrown in, hooked, told to dance covered), conducts a tense negotiation between Virgil and Malacoda using the standard heavenly formula, and closes on the most famous obscene line in the Comedy. Three hundred lines in which Hell has become a place where you almost laugh.
The Arsenal as the model of lower Hell
The eleven-line opening simile is the Comedy's most detailed picture of contemporary European industrial life. The Arsenale of Venice — the Arsenal of the Venetians — was, by Dante's time, the largest single industrial operation in Europe. It produced the warships of the Venetian Republic on something approaching an assembly-line model two and a half centuries before the term existed: hulls caulked, masts stepped, oars cut, ropes twisted, sails sewn, all in parallel under one state administration. Dante's eleven lines list six concurrent operations — one hammers at the prow, one at the stern, this one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, another mends the mainsail and the mizzen — and the catalogue is the Comedy's most direct reportage on contemporary skilled work. The canto chooses this image for the bolgia of corrupt politicians because the Inferno is increasingly an infrastructure — a vast administrative apparatus of punishment, with named bureaucrats (devils) and standard procedures. The Arsenal and Malebolge are both operations.
The simile carries a small theological note as well. Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine, was boiling down below there a dense pitch. The Venetian pitch boils because labourers stoke a fire under it; the bolgia's pitch boils by divine art — that is, by direct divine maintenance, without combustible. The lower Hell does not need fuel. The administration of damnation is, in this small phrase, made completely self-sufficient.
The first sinner and the dignity of the speech-act
The Lucchese magistrate thrown into the pitch is not named individually. He is one of the elders of Saint Zita — un de li anzian di Santa Zita, one of Lucca's Anziani, the city's chief magistrates. The devil's commentary as he throws him in is the canto's earliest political moment: all there are barrators, except Bonturo. Bonturo Dati was the most corrupt politician in Lucca; Dante's first audience would have heard the line as a sarcasm so brutal it lands as a flat insult. The fifth bolgia is, by the same logic, Lucca's official representative in Hell.
The sinner's whole experience is reduced to a sequence of operations. He sinks; he rises; he tries to surface; the devils tell him here the Santo Volto has no place (the Holy Face was Lucca's miraculous crucifix in the cathedral of San Martino, the city's most famous religious object); they tell him here swims one otherwise than in the Serchio (the Serchio is Lucca's local river, in which Lucchese people swam); and they hook him with rakes and shove him back under, as cooks make scullions immerse the meat that it may not float. The simile of the kitchen-boy is the canto's quietest small moment of moral reduction: the magistrate has become boiled meat.
Virgil and Malacoda
The negotiation between Virgil and Malacoda is the canto's most theologically interesting passage. Virgil, when the devils threaten him, uses precisely the formula by which he silenced Charon in canto III and Minos in canto V: it in Heaven is willed. The formula has been the Comedy's standard procedure for getting past any creature in Hell. It works again. Malacoda lets the grapnel fall and instructs the others not to strike.
But the canto is preparing a deception that will not be revealed until canto XXIII. Malacoda tells Virgil that one thousand and two hundred sixty-six years and a few hours ago — that is, on the date of Christ's harrowing of Hell on Holy Saturday, in the year 34 — the way was broken and the sixth arch lies all shattered at the bottom; but, he says, there is another crag near by that yields a path, and he will send ten of his devils to escort the poets along the dike. The reader is not yet told that all the bridges over the sixth bolgia are broken, not just the one Malacoda mentions. The devils' escort will end (in canto XXIII) in revelation that the destination does not exist. The lower Hell, on first thought to be merely comic, is in fact engaging in fraud against the pilgrim himself. Even the formula it in Heaven is willed does not protect the poets from being lied to.
The named cast
The devils are introduced by name in three quick tercets — Step forward Alichino and Calcabrina, and thou, Cagnazzo; and Barbariccia do thou guide the ten. Come forward, Libicocco and Draghignazzo, and tusked Ciriatto and Graffiacane, and Farfarello and mad Rubicante — and the names are coined from Italian street-slang and from dog-words. Malacoda (Bad-Tail), Barbariccia (Curly-Beard), Cagnazzo (Big-Dog), Graffiacane (Dog-Scratcher), Draghignazzo (Dragon-Snarl), Ciriatto Sannuto (Tusked-Ciriatto), Farfarello (Imp), Rubicante (Red-Hot). The names are low. The Inferno's previous gatekeepers — Charon, Minos, Cerberus, Plutus, Phlegyas, the Furies, Lucifer — had names that came up out of classical antiquity. These have names that come up out of a Florentine alleyway. The downward register is the canto's deliberate effect: the lower Hell does not need dignity.
The last line and the comic mode
The canto closes on a single line of unembarrassed obscenity. The devils, having received their orders, signal their assent by thrusting their tongues between their teeth toward Barbariccia, the leader of the ten — and Barbariccia returns the signal by making a trumpet of his rump. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta. The line has been the most quoted obscene tercet in Italian poetry for seven hundred years. The line works because Dante's gravity does not drop with the obscenity: the diction stays the same, the rhythm stays the same, the line lands at the place of canto-closing where the Comedy most often delivers an image of arrival. To close the canto on a fart is to assert that the lower Hell has no register too low for verse. Dante is honouring the moral discovery of the canto with the formal discovery: a comic mode that is exactly as serious as the elevated one.
Famous and meaningful passages
The opening dismissal.
From bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things Of which my Comedy cares not to sing, We came along. (Inf. XXI.1–3)
The narrator declines to record his own conversation with Virgil. Di che la mia Comedia cantar non cura. The first occurrence of the word Comedia inside the poem.
The Arsenal.
As in the Arsenal of the Venetians Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch To smear their unsound vessels o'er again, For sail they cannot; and instead thereof One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks The ribs of that which many a voyage has made; One hammers at the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine, Was boiling down below there a dense pitch. (Inf. XXI.7–17)
Eleven lines of contemporary Venetian shipbuilding. The single most detailed industrial passage in the Comedy. Non per foco, ma per divin'arte — not by fire, but by divine art — is the small phrase that turns the Arsenal into Hell.
The devil's announcement.
O Malebranche, Behold one of the elders of Saint Zita; Plunge him beneath, for I return for others Unto that town, which is well furnished with them. All there are barrators, except Bonturo; No into Yes for money there is changed. (Inf. XXI.37–42)
The Lucchese magistrate introduced as a regularly-supplied commodity. Ogn'uom v'è barattier, fuor che Bonturo. The sarcasm of the exception is the canto's signature.
The Santo Volto joke.
Here the Santo Volto has no place! Here swims one otherwise than in the Serchio. (Inf. XXI.48–49)
The Lucchese cathedral's crucifix and the Lucchese river. The devils know the city's iconography well enough to mock it.
The cook simile.
Not otherwise the cooks their scullions make Immerse into the middle of the caldron The meat with hooks, so that it may not float. (Inf. XXI.55–57)
The damned magistrate as meat that must not be allowed to surface. One of the Inferno's coldest small images.
Virgil's heavenly formula.
Thinkest thou, Malacoda, to behold me Advanced into this place, my Master said, Safe hitherto from all your skill of fence, Without the will divine, and fate auspicious? Let me go on, for it in Heaven is willed That I another show this savage road. (Inf. XXI.79–84)
The third use of the formula. It worked on Charon in III, on Minos in V; here on Malacoda. Notice it will not work, fully, in canto XXIII: Malacoda's compliance is partial.
The naming of the squad.
Step forward Alichino and Calcabrina, Began he to cry out, and thou, Cagnazzo; And Barbariccia do thou guide the ten. Come forward, Libicocco and Draghignazzo, And tusked Ciriatto and Graffiacane, And Farfarello and mad Rubicante. (Inf. XXI.118–123)
Ten devils named in six lines. The fullest cast list in the Inferno.
The pilgrim's small request.
O me! what is it, Master, that I see? Pray let us go, I said, without an escort, If thou knowest how, since for myself I ask none. If thou art as observant as thy wont is, Dost thou not see that they do gnash their teeth, And with their brows are threatening woe to us? (Inf. XXI.127–132)
The pilgrim is the first to notice that the escort is malevolent. Virgil's reply — I will not have thee fear; let them gnash on, according to their fancy — will be revealed two cantos later as misjudgement. The poet has been deceived.
The closing tercet.
Along the left-hand dike they wheeled about; But first had each one thrust his tongue between His teeth towards their leader for a signal; And he had made a trumpet of his rump. (Inf. XXI.136–139)
Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta. The most quoted obscene tercet in Italian literature, delivered with the same gravity as everything else in the canto. The line ends the canto on a deliberate violation of register.
What to watch for
Watch the next canto. The squad of ten devils escorts the poets along the bank; the comic register intensifies; a Navarrese sinner called Ciampolo plays the devils for fools; and two of the squad end up in the pitch themselves. The episode runs straight from XXI into XXII without interruption.
Watch the lie. Malacoda's claim about the broken sixth arch is a partial truth; the rest of the truth will be revealed in canto XXIII, when the poets find that all the bridges over the sixth bolgia are broken. Virgil will be angrier with himself for having been deceived than the canto warrants.
Watch the cast. Most of the devils named here will reappear in canto XXII. The Comedy never wastes a name.
This post is part of Reading Divine Comedy, a slow daily companion to Dante's Commedia in the Longfellow translation — read one canto at a time, with a short orientation before and a close reading after. From Inferno I to Paradiso XXXIII.