Cavalcante de cavalcanti inferno stresser 2

The tombs are open — the covers are removed — and they are engulfed by flames. In Hell they are buried in tombs that signify their willful turning away from the life of Christian truth to the death of disbelief. Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

He supports this claim by having the travelers pass the tomb of Pope Anastasius II at the beginning of Inferno 11 Inf. However, in Inferno 10 he focuses almost exclusively on Epicureans. In this canto, Dante stages encounters with two Epicureans, not with souls of any other heretical sect. For Dante, these encounters thus stage his own materialist attachment to both his place of origin and his poetic project.

He regarded the unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as the primary cause of anxiety among human beings, and anxiety in turn as the source of extreme and irrational desires. The elimination of the fears and corresponding desires would leave people free to pursue the pleasures, both physical and mental, to which they are naturally drawn, and to enjoy the peace of mind that is consequent upon their regularly expected and achieved satisfaction.

Dante's inferno canto 12 summary

Writing in the wake of Inferno 10, Boccaccio makes very clear that to be Epicurean equates to being a non-believer, what we moderns call atheists. He explains that Guido Cavalcanti held Epicurean positions, and that therefore the vulgar folk said that he was seeking to show that God did not exist:. Decameron , 6.