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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And Katie, I've

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Speaker 1: noticed it's getting a little bit cooler yet, just not

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Speaker 1: in our office, but everywhere else, a little bit of

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Speaker 1: fall in the year. When when fall comes to Georgia,

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Speaker 1: it's so lovely because it's normally so humid and hot here.

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Speaker 1: And when fall comes to Georgia, I start to think

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Speaker 1: about Halloween, and I know you do too, because, as

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Speaker 1: most of our listeners know, Katie and I love Halloween,

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Speaker 1: we love costumes and just getting in the seasonal spirit

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Speaker 1: of it all. I'm still trying to decide on mine

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Speaker 1: because I'm torn between the Cannibal Queen or poly Chrome

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Speaker 1: from the Wizard of Oz series. But no one would

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Speaker 1: know what I loved that was a dragon con inspired costume.

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Speaker 1: I mention that, um, so you are in luck if

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Speaker 1: you like how Queen too, because we're gonna spend October

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Speaker 1: filling our slate with lots of fun, spooky, scary episode

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Speaker 1: so we'll cover all sorts of basses. And since Halloween

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Speaker 1: is after all, all Hallow's Eve, we thought it would

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Speaker 1: be only right to start our series with a visit

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Speaker 1: to the underworld. Yeah, we're gonna be taking a literary

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Speaker 1: angle with this episode, though, and a historical angle of course,

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Speaker 1: And we're gonna be visiting the underworld with Dante, who

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Speaker 1: of course began his epic poem The Divine Comedy with

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Speaker 1: a jaunt through the Inferno. And we're gonna look at

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Speaker 1: five people who Dante cast into help and try to

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Speaker 1: figure out how they ended up there, why he put

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Speaker 1: them there, what the whole story is. And we have

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Speaker 1: to give a preemptive thanks to Molly who helped us

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Speaker 1: with a lot of the Italian pronunciations to me who

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Speaker 1: suggested this very town true from the stuff Mom Never

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Speaker 1: Told You podcast. So thanks Molly. Let's give you a

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Speaker 1: little background. A fourteenth century Italian would recognize not only

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Speaker 1: the allegories in the Inferno, but the real people, and

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Speaker 1: you would recognize some of them Cleopatra, Alexander, the Great, Saladine, Cassius,

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Speaker 1: and you'd also recognize biblical figures like Judas who's famously

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Speaker 1: writhing in Satan's mouth, and mythological figures like Jason. But

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Speaker 1: the fourteenth century Italian would also recognize people that they

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Speaker 1: knew or that their families knew. Like you know, if

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Speaker 1: you picked up the latest bestseller and saw celebrities, politicians,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps your own neighbors consigned to hell. Pretty serious stuff.

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Speaker 1: So this is what makes the Divine Comedy not just

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Speaker 1: a brilliant piece of literature and not just a powerful

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Speaker 1: universal allegory that still appeals to us today, still can

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Speaker 1: make sense to us today. It makes it because it's

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Speaker 1: so timely in local the inferno becomes a powerful weapon too,

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Speaker 1: and consigning your enemies to the worst possible torments imaginable.

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Speaker 1: If you do out, you can taint their reputations for

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Speaker 1: a literary eternity. So yeah, five points were done to podcast.

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Speaker 1: So for this list, we've picked five people who your

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Speaker 1: average Florentine would have known, but who you may not know. Um.

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Speaker 1: People like Cleopatri and Alexander of course get their own

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Speaker 1: episodes after all, but these do not. So to understand

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Speaker 1: who they are and why Dante cast them and how,

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Speaker 1: we have to understand of course, where he's coming from

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Speaker 1: and when he wrote the comedy, he was in exile,

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Speaker 1: which was a very serious issue for a man in

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Speaker 1: the early. Yeah, something to think about here would be

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Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet. It's such a big deal when Romeo

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Speaker 1: is exiled from Verona. It's not like you can just

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Speaker 1: go move and settle down in the town next door.

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Speaker 1: Your city is also your state, and without citizenship, you

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Speaker 1: just become a wanderer. You have no family, you have

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Speaker 1: no income, you're you're reliant on anybody who will help

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Speaker 1: you out. So during his decades of exile, Dante lives

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Speaker 1: as a guest in people's houses, he travels perhaps all

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Speaker 1: the way to paris Um, and he's separated from his family.

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Speaker 1: So writing this master work of literature in exile is

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Speaker 1: a pretty awesome act of revenge well, and it's also

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Speaker 1: a declaration of love for a city that he eventually

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Speaker 1: realizes he's never going to be able to come back to.

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Speaker 1: So why is Dante exiled? And you're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: bear with us for a little bit because this story

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Speaker 1: starts long before Dante is even born. Comes out of

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Speaker 1: a power struggle between the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope,

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Speaker 1: and everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie. And

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Speaker 1: as we've seen over and over in our podcast, Northern

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Speaker 1: Italy is where it's at. It's where everyone is trying

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Speaker 1: to expand his territories and expand his powers. And this

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Speaker 1: starts back in the late eleven hundreds, by the way,

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Speaker 1: and our city states, these places like Genoa, Pizza and

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Speaker 1: eventually Florence change hands over and over have about a

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Speaker 1: million wars. But this division has two broad sides. We

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Speaker 1: have the Ghibbillings, who are the emperor's men and they're

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Speaker 1: generally considered more aristocratic as a group. And we have

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Speaker 1: the Guealths, the Pope's men, who don't really want to

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Speaker 1: be part of the empire, and they're generally more middle

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Speaker 1: class or wealthy merchants. Dante is a Guelf and the

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Speaker 1: Guealth Ghibbiling conflict in Florence actually starts over a jilted bride. Seriously,

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Speaker 1: in twelve fifteen, the daughter of one noble family is

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Speaker 1: jilted for the daughter of another noble family. The groom

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Speaker 1: is stabbed in the street, because that seems to be

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Speaker 1: a pretty common fate for a lot of these guys,

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Speaker 1: and all the aristocratic families take sides, and we get

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Speaker 1: years of this back and forth. The Guealth in power,

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Speaker 1: the Ghibillings in power, and every time power changes hands,

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Speaker 1: let's trash the city, exile our enemies. You can see

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Speaker 1: how this is a terribly unhealthy way for state, for

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Speaker 1: a city to function. And Dante is born right in

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Speaker 1: the middle of it in twelve sixty five, and as

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Speaker 1: soon as he's of age, he throws himself into politics,

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Speaker 1: as any good citizen does. And things are going well

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Speaker 1: for a little bit. His party, the Guelphs, are actually

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Speaker 1: in charge and he's elected to the priory and the

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Speaker 1: Ghibbilings are banished. So you would think that there might

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Speaker 1: be a piece at last, but we know better, obviously not.

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Speaker 1: The Guelths start to fight among themselves and they split

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Speaker 1: into two subgroups. We have the blacks who still support

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Speaker 1: the papacy and the whites, who think papal influence is

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Speaker 1: getting to be a bit more than they bargain for.

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Speaker 1: They're hoping for a little more independence. And this is

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Speaker 1: where it's a little confusing, because they are still technically

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Speaker 1: they're all gal well, they just have different ideas than

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Speaker 1: they used to. And you know, this, this division between

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Speaker 1: the blacks and the white starts over a weird family

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Speaker 1: conflict to there's I think the children of a man

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Speaker 1: who was married twice fight among themselves and the children

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Speaker 1: of the first wife, whose name was Bianca. There the

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Speaker 1: whites and the blacks to set themselves up against their

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Speaker 1: older siblings take on. Yeah, it's a bit much to cup.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty crazy. So just think of like broad political

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Speaker 1: conflicts combined with family drama. So finally, in thirteen oh one,

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Speaker 1: we get a white guelf delegation sent to Realm. Dante

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Speaker 1: may have been part of that group to determine what

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Speaker 1: the Pope's intentions towards this city are. And while they're gone,

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Speaker 1: it becomes very clear. Indeed, because the Pope's quote unquote

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Speaker 1: peacemaker Sarah says, Charles of Valois enters the city, allows

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Speaker 1: the blacks to take power and also allows them to

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Speaker 1: nearly destroy Florence. So they're in power now, the blacks

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Speaker 1: are in control. Dante is a white. He is a

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Speaker 1: prominent member of politics in Florence, so you can guess

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Speaker 1: what happens. His political career is over. He's sentenced to

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Speaker 1: death in absentia and he never sees Florence again. His

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Speaker 1: family still lives there. They're safe enough. His wife, after all,

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Speaker 1: is a black um. But we've got Dante in exile,

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Speaker 1: and that's where all alone, that's where we can start

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Speaker 1: our story. So with this background, let's enter Dante's literary

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Speaker 1: creation and see who's in hell. So we're going to

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Speaker 1: skip past all the babies because it makes its sad,

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Speaker 1: and the nice folks in Limbo and uh, we're even

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Speaker 1: going to cruise through a few of the earlier circles

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Speaker 1: to start. And since the Guelph ghibbling stuff is all

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Speaker 1: fresh in your minds, we're going to start with one

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Speaker 1: of their leaders who's now resting in a burning tomb,

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Speaker 1: and his name is Farnada de Uberti, who's in the

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Speaker 1: sixth circle with the heretics. So Virgil has escorted Dante

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Speaker 1: through the gates of the city into another hell, and

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Speaker 1: they enter a plane that's covered in fiery tombs for

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Speaker 1: every heretic, and Dante is hauled over by one shade

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Speaker 1: in particular, who recognizes his Tuscan accent. And as he's

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Speaker 1: chatting with Virgil, and here's a quote, and all these

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Speaker 1: quotes are going to be from the Dorothy Sayers translation.

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Speaker 1: By the way, the native accent proves the manifestly born

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Speaker 1: of the land. I vexed with so great harm a

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Speaker 1: noble land and too much vexed maybe why it's Farignada,

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Speaker 1: of course, and he's popping out of his tomb, and

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Speaker 1: he's kind of snobby y, asking Dante's name and his

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Speaker 1: family name. And when he finds out who Dante is,

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Speaker 1: and of course would recognize the family name is that

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Speaker 1: of a famous Guealth family, he reacts pretty snobbylly too,

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Speaker 1: because it's his enemy. Well, because in life he was

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Speaker 1: leader of the Ghibilline faction in Florence. He would have

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Speaker 1: been the enemy of Dante's ancestors long before this Black

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Speaker 1: Guelves and White Guelves conflict began. And when the Ghibillins

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Speaker 1: were exiled from Florence in twelve fifty, Farignada allied with

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Speaker 1: the Sillian claimant and trounced the Guelphs at Montepeti, followed

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Speaker 1: by Florence and tossed out the party of Dante's family,

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Speaker 1: and Dante at least gives him credit for convincing the

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Speaker 1: Gibilings not to destroy Florence. But he's still in the inferno.

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Speaker 1: So why is that, Sarah, Because nearly twenty years after

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Speaker 1: he died, the inquisition found Farinata and his wife guilty

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Speaker 1: of heresy, and specifically heresy not believing that the soul

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Speaker 1: lives on after death. So you can see that these

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Speaker 1: political vendetta's, this back and forth stuff, it lasts beyond death,

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Speaker 1: lasts into the grave. And I mean literally, because this

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Speaker 1: guy and his wife are dug up and then burned

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Speaker 1: because of their heresy twenty years almost twenty years after

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Speaker 1: That doesn't quite seem fair. So we're going to move on.

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Speaker 1: And now Dante and Virgil approached the Seventh Circle, where

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Speaker 1: the violent suffer eternal torment, and soon they come to

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Speaker 1: this dead forest. Each tree in cases the soul of

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Speaker 1: a suicide, and there they find Pietro del Vina. And

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Speaker 1: this is the seventh Circle and the wood of the suicides,

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Speaker 1: and Dante approaches a trunk pretty kindly and convinces him

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Speaker 1: to speak. It's kind of a more tender scene in

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Speaker 1: the Inferno um. And this is what the shade says

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Speaker 1: to him. I am he that held both keys of

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Speaker 1: Frederick's heart to lock and to unlock, And well I

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Speaker 1: knew to turn them with so exquisite an art. I

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Speaker 1: helped his counsel, and I let few men through loyal

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Speaker 1: to my glorious charge. Did I remain and sacrifice my

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Speaker 1: sleep and strength too? So he goes on to say that,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was Frederick's right hand man, but hearts

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Speaker 1: turned against him, and in an attempt to escape scorn

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Speaker 1: and to attempt the charges that are leveled at him,

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Speaker 1: he takes his own life, quote to my just self,

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Speaker 1: I made myself unjust. So who was this guy? He

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Speaker 1: was the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick the seconds chief Minister. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that holy Roman Emperor, the one who the Ghibblings support.

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Speaker 1: And he's a very likable, tragic figure in the inferno.

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Speaker 1: He's a man who rose from poverty to study law

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Speaker 1: and eventually gained this important position at Frederick's court. He

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Speaker 1: served as a judge, He wrote legal documents and codes

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Speaker 1: in a very elegant form. He wrote poetry in Latin

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Speaker 1: and Italian, and as we mentioned, he eventually became Frederick's

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Speaker 1: right hand man. He negotiated his marriage, he met with

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Speaker 1: popes on his behalf. But you know what happens to

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Speaker 1: the number two of a powerful man. People start hating

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Speaker 1: on Medica. Yeah, in twelve forty nine, he's accused of

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Speaker 1: plotting to poison the emperor, and he's done in with

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Speaker 1: pretty quickly. He's arrested, blinded, and then he either dies

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Speaker 1: and Virgil continue on their journey and they meet lots

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Speaker 1: meet a bunch of Florentine bankers. You can imagine Dante

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Speaker 1: is going to put quite a few of them in hell.

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Speaker 1: So finally they pass into a new realm. It's the

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Speaker 1: eighth Circle of Hell. And there you'll find flatterers and

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Speaker 1: and it's actually one of the most cutting scenes in

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Speaker 1: all of the comedy. And you'll find out why next.

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Speaker 1: And as Dante approaches the place where all of those

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Speaker 1: who committed simony are, he sees them stuck feet up

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Speaker 1: in these rock holes with flames dancing at their feet,

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Speaker 1: which is how assassins were executed. And he approaches one

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Speaker 1: stay ending there, art thou standing there already, Boniface? Why

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Speaker 1: then the writ has lied by many a year, and

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Speaker 1: it's a mix up, a mix up, hitting mix up,

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Speaker 1: very cutting mix up. So this guy who Dante is

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Speaker 1: And it's bold enough to cast a pope in hell,

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Speaker 1: but Dante makes it like ten times worse by implicating

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Speaker 1: not just Pope Nicholas the Third, but Boniface the eighth.

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Speaker 1: And it's like he's not in hell yet, but he's

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Speaker 1: going to be. It's a pretty pretty dangerous and bold

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Speaker 1: thing to do. Well. The popes share one hole in

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Speaker 1: Nicholas thinks his replacement is already there, to drive him

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Speaker 1: deeper into the pit earlier than he was predicted. Dante

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Speaker 1: has to explain, you don't know, I'm not the next pope,

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Speaker 1: Dante um. In fact, Nicholas goes on to mention that

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Speaker 1: be following him into his whole eventually, Boniface the eighth

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Speaker 1: and Clement the fifth. And it's important here if if

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Speaker 1: we're going to be really considering why Dante is putting

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Speaker 1: these particular people in hell bonifice his role in Dante's exile,

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Speaker 1: we mentioned him. Dante is not a fan of this pope,

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Speaker 1: but Nicholas is actually a pretty impressive guy. He's born

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Speaker 1: Giovanni Gitano or Cini, and he really helped calm down

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Speaker 1: tensions among the Franciscans. He also heads the Inquisition, and

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Speaker 1: when he's pope he helps reform the administration of the

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Speaker 1: papal states. But he wasn't all pope all the time.

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Speaker 1: He was definitely very political and he worked to fill

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Speaker 1: up pretty much every slot there was with his own family.

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Speaker 1: He made his family into cardinals, three of them, um

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Speaker 1: he put others into high offices. He got quite a

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Speaker 1: reputation for nepotism, a deserved reputation, and thus ends up

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Speaker 1: in Dante's Inferno for simony, which could be this selling

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Speaker 1: of ecclesiastical offices. So there we go, But we're gonna

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Speaker 1: to be honest, things get kind of depressing and very

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Speaker 1: cold the further down we go. So after leaving behind

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Speaker 1: Nicholas with this vision about his successors coming along Dante

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Speaker 1: enters the Fourth Bows and comes to the sorcerers, and

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Speaker 1: because their site was twisted by distorting God, now their

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Speaker 1: heads are twisted and they're forced to walk backwards. And

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Speaker 1: he sees augers, magicians, astrologers, and alchemists and Michael Scott.

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Speaker 1: Not that Michael Scott, although he would love to be

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Speaker 1: a magician, or the guy turns out to be the

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Speaker 1: ultimate magician. It's a little jarring in the text. It

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Speaker 1: kind of reminded me of reading Bleak House. And suddenly

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Speaker 1: there's this very minor character named Michael Jackson in the

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Speaker 1: middle of thing. We were not expecting you here. But

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Speaker 1: this Michael Scott, who is in the eighth Circle of Hell,

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Speaker 1: is a wizard, or at least he gets a pretty

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Speaker 1: big reputation as being a wizard. In reality he sounds

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Speaker 1: more like a translator and a scholar. But um, this

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Speaker 1: is how Dante spots him. That other there who looks

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Speaker 1: so lean and small in the flanks was Michael Scott,

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Speaker 1: who verily knew every trick of the art magical. That

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Speaker 1: does sound like the office. Michael so Scott was born

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Speaker 1: in eleven seventy five. He was Scottish and he helped

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Speaker 1: repopularize Aristotle in Western Europe by translating his work into Latin.

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Speaker 1: But he was also an astrologer or you know who

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Speaker 1: knows a magician and um. From what Sarah was reading,

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Speaker 1: it seems like astrologers were actually in pretty high demand

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Speaker 1: in the thirteenth century. Just from our general experience on

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Speaker 1: this podcast, it seems like every court needs an astrologer

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Speaker 1: to an alchemist. Think you have Catherine de Medici, I mean,

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Speaker 1: how many how many did she have? Mony? So regardless,

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Speaker 1: Scott worked in Spain for a little bit and then

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Speaker 1: in Italy, and he maybe even entered the pope service

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Speaker 1: for a time, and later in life he spent some

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Speaker 1: time in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick

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Speaker 1: the Second. Again. So yeah, there's our guealth ghibbling connection

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Speaker 1: which has to pop up in in almost all of

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Speaker 1: these um and that's Michael Scott for you, a new

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Speaker 1: Michael Scott to add to your repertoire. So Dante and

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Speaker 1: Virgil keep on going, and they moved past the hypocrites

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Speaker 1: and their leaden cloaks, past the fees. We've got plenty

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Speaker 1: of familiar faces there, past the sewers of discord, and

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Speaker 1: finally they reached the ninth circle, which holds the souls

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Speaker 1: of traders, and we know who's at the very bottom.

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Speaker 1: But before we get to that, there's one particularly gory meeting,

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Speaker 1: and that's with Ugolino de la Gherardesca. So up until now,

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Speaker 1: if you've read The Inferno, it's been pretty rollicking place.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly not a nice place, but it's

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Speaker 1: been loud, it's been crazy. There have been all the party,

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Speaker 1: we've been all these wild sites, and now it's dead silent,

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Speaker 1: And it's this very disturbing shift in the story. And

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Speaker 1: that's because in this next level everything is frozen in ice,

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Speaker 1: because these are the traders, and they've so alienated themselves

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Speaker 1: from everything that they can't even move anymore. So Dante

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Speaker 1: obviously sees a lot of familiar faces here. He's he

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Speaker 1: runs into two feuding brothers, one who's a Guelf and

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Speaker 1: one of Gibelin, who killed each other of their property.

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Speaker 1: He runs into a member of the Consiliary family, and

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Speaker 1: that's the family that starts the feud between the Whites

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Speaker 1: and the Blacks. He sees a gibling turned Guelph who

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Speaker 1: cut off the hand of a Florentine standard bearer in

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Speaker 1: the middle of a battle, which threw the troops into panic.

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Speaker 1: Dante actually grabs this guy by the neck and calls

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Speaker 1: him a filthy trader. This is Dante's biggest reactions come

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Speaker 1: in this part of Hell, because everything is so emotionally charged.

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Speaker 1: And then he comes on two shades who are frozen

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Speaker 1: in the same hole, and one is gnawing the head

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Speaker 1: of the other. And a quote from the text, it

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Speaker 1: was two frozen together in one hole, so that the

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Speaker 1: one head capped the other head, and a starved men

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Speaker 1: tear bread this toward the pole of the one beneath,

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Speaker 1: chewing with ravenous jaw where brain meets marrow, just beneath

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Speaker 1: the skull. That's pretty gross, and we're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: figure out why Dante chose to depict this scene. So

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Speaker 1: the tour is Ugolino Adela Garadesca, and he's an Italian

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Speaker 1: noble who led the Guelfs and Pizza, which was largely

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Speaker 1: a Ghibillen city. So when he becomes the chief magistrate

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Speaker 1: of the city in twelve eighty four, he tries to

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Speaker 1: consolidate his power, and an important thing he does here

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Speaker 1: trying to do this, he gives away a couple of

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Speaker 1: castles in Pizza to Florence into another city to help

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Speaker 1: build and establish alliances, and this causes trouble between him

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Speaker 1: and his grandson, who's also a prominent political party in Pizza,

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Speaker 1: and it causes trouble among the city's guelf So he

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to lose his power to his grandson, so

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Speaker 1: Ugolino conspires with the Gibeline These are these are the enemies,

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Speaker 1: and he does this to drive his grandson out of Pizza. Specifically,

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Speaker 1: he's working with an archbishop Ruggieri, who, surprised, is the

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Speaker 1: head he's now gnawing on in Hell, and Ruggieri betrays

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Speaker 1: him in turn, as traitors often do, um and reminds

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Speaker 1: everyone how Ugolino gave those castles away, and he's locked

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Speaker 1: up in a tower with two sons and two grandsons

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Speaker 1: and left to starve. But Dante insinuates that he resorts

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Speaker 1: to cannibalism before death, but recently he was exhumed where

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Speaker 1: it was determined he probably couldn't have eaten meat if

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Speaker 1: he wanted to because his teeth were so bad. So

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Speaker 1: that's where we're gonna leave Dante in Virgil behind unless

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Speaker 1: we end up doing the Julius Caesar episode at some

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Speaker 1: point because we know a couple of the guys that

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Speaker 1: leads to are a little further down and out, but

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Speaker 1: that that kind of sets the tone for our Halloween

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Speaker 1: series of specials right exactly. And since we can't always

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Speaker 1: get our podcast ideas from our coworkers, feel free to

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Speaker 1: email us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: We've also got any Facebook fan page, come and find us,

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Speaker 1: and you can follow us on Twitter at missed in History.

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Speaker 1: And they also have a very fabulous website where you

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Speaker 1: can find out everything you wanted to know about cannibalism.

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Speaker 1: If you search on the home page at www dot

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics because it how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And be sure to check out the stuff you missed

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Speaker 1: in History class flogged on the house staff works dot

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