Why do we find so much imagery of eating in Cantos XXXII through XXXIV?
Here, in the pit of hell, we find the worst of sinners. The others were even too righteous to coexist with these foul creatures, having committed acts of satanic value. Evil birthing such lifelessness that fire itself could not eternal nor momentarily consume, but only a frozen wasteland of still and upside-down monsters. The screams and cries of anguish cease, reason and speech are abandoned due to their uselessness.
This is where Dante comes upon the figure Count Ugolino. Ugolino describes himself italian nobility in Pisa. Ugolino was born a Ghibelline, but soon joined the Guelf party as a means of obtaining more political power in Pisa. However he was exiled in his first attempt and later joined with Ruggieri. Both planned to seize power in Pisa, but as soon as their plan began working, according to Ugolino, Ruggieri betrayed him, causing his imprisonment and death. Historically, Ugolino was known to have betrayed Ruggieri first, but failed in imprisoning him as Ugolino had been. In prison, along with both his children (and supposedly grandchildren as well), they were locked in and the key thrown into a river, leaving them to starve. Accounts speak of Ugolino cannibalising his children in order to extend his own life further.
When Dante first comes upon Ugolino, he finds the shade gnawing on the brain of another, both encased waist-up in ice. The other shade he feeds on Dante discovers to be his betrayer, Ruggieri. The cannibalism Dante witnesses not only accounts for that he commits in prison, but also speaks to his sins in his political career as well. Ugolino, used what political power he had to climb over other people, thriving off of their demise, much like the idea of cannibalism.
Cannibalism exists in the centre of hell as the most evil of sins in Dante's hierarchy due to cannibalism's application to all three of Dante's denominations of sins. Dante categorises sins into three distinct sets: sins of incontinence, sins of fraud, and sins of violence. Cannibalism is a sin of violence in that it involves the murder of an individual and/or the mutilation of their body. It also is a sin of fraud in that it takes something that should be living and admired as the image of God and distorts it into something as common as food. Finally, cannibalism falls under the category of incontinence in that it is an unnatural way of satiating something as common as hunger.
This is where Dante comes upon the figure Count Ugolino. Ugolino describes himself italian nobility in Pisa. Ugolino was born a Ghibelline, but soon joined the Guelf party as a means of obtaining more political power in Pisa. However he was exiled in his first attempt and later joined with Ruggieri. Both planned to seize power in Pisa, but as soon as their plan began working, according to Ugolino, Ruggieri betrayed him, causing his imprisonment and death. Historically, Ugolino was known to have betrayed Ruggieri first, but failed in imprisoning him as Ugolino had been. In prison, along with both his children (and supposedly grandchildren as well), they were locked in and the key thrown into a river, leaving them to starve. Accounts speak of Ugolino cannibalising his children in order to extend his own life further.
When Dante first comes upon Ugolino, he finds the shade gnawing on the brain of another, both encased waist-up in ice. The other shade he feeds on Dante discovers to be his betrayer, Ruggieri. The cannibalism Dante witnesses not only accounts for that he commits in prison, but also speaks to his sins in his political career as well. Ugolino, used what political power he had to climb over other people, thriving off of their demise, much like the idea of cannibalism.
Cannibalism exists in the centre of hell as the most evil of sins in Dante's hierarchy due to cannibalism's application to all three of Dante's denominations of sins. Dante categorises sins into three distinct sets: sins of incontinence, sins of fraud, and sins of violence. Cannibalism is a sin of violence in that it involves the murder of an individual and/or the mutilation of their body. It also is a sin of fraud in that it takes something that should be living and admired as the image of God and distorts it into something as common as food. Finally, cannibalism falls under the category of incontinence in that it is an unnatural way of satiating something as common as hunger.
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