Great job naming a few of Dante’s enemies! As it were, Pope Boniface VIII was guilty of simony; the practice of giving spiritual favors for money by removing the excommunication order on one of Dante’s enemies as well as absolving that person of all future sins. That enemy of Dante happened to be Guido da Montefeltro and he can be found in the eighth circle of hell.

I believe God allowed humans to know of the existence of heaven and hell. Though, I am fairly sure Dante took a lot of liberties regarding his version of hell as readers could see similarities between the older great poets’ versions of the underworld and Dante’s. Of course, Dante also significantly added a lot of Christian themes in his version of hell as well. The little that is revealed to us about these two places of the afterlife really does not allow us any way to determine what they would really be like. There are glimpses that can be found throughout the Bible, but these passages may only be allegorical at the least. Philip

 Do you think Dante correctly put these people in hell within his book as deserved punishment by God, or do you think Dante put his enemies in hell as retribution to how they treated him? (150 words response)