Le spectacle de la faute dans la dixième bolge de l’Enfer de Dante: le cas de Maître Adam et de Sinon
The Spectacle of Guilt in the Tenth Trench (bolgia) of Dante’s Hell: The Case of Master Adam and the Greek Sinon

Summary/Abstract: This essay aims to analyse one of the episodes in which the action goes on in the tenth trench (Italian: bolgia) of the eighth circle of Dante’s Hell, where the falsifiers of things, words, money, and persons lie stricken with hideous diseases that are their contrapasso and should be interpreted allegorically. My attention is focused upon the protagonist of the Canto XXX, the Englishman Master Adam that counterfeited Florentine coins (on which the portrait of the patron saint of the city, St John the Baptist, was engraved), his dialogue with Dante, as well as the spectacular quarrel between him and the Greek Sinon who convinced the Trojans to bring the famous wooden horse into the city. The analyse concerns particular dramatic and theatrical strategies, as well as rhetoric means on account of which the entire scene assumes highly performative character. I also try to clarify and interpret the semantic dimension of some singular points of the episode.

• Details
• Contents