Serchio

Description

In Canto XXI of the Inferno, at verse 49, Dante uses the river Serchio as a term of comparison to underscore how different, compared to ordinary swimming, is the movement of the damned in the boiling pitch of the fifth bolgia. The image is part of the scene in which the devils, after having made a damned soul emerge from the pitch, describe him as particularly quick in hurling himself upon the new prey; it is in this context that the Serchio is called upon, evoking a river known to Dante's audience for its torrential and impetuous character. The reference serves as a measure of parody and defamiliarization, typical of the grotesque register that dominates the canto.