Aeneas

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Dante mentions Aeneas at the opening of the poem as a term of comparison with his own enterprise: in the second canto of the Inferno, after declaring that he is neither Aeneas nor Paul, he presents the two figures as exempla parallel to his journey. The critical notes specify that Aeneas was granted the descent into the underworld in consideration of his future task, that of preparing the Empire of Rome, while to Paul fell the task of bringing comfort to the Christian faith; the two names give Dante's journey a historical and civic dimension. In the fourth canto of the Inferno, in Limbo, Aeneas is remembered among the great spirits together with Hector. Finally, in the twenty-sixth canto, a character recalls that his own city would have been named differently if Aeneas had not designated it, a sign of the foundational role attributed to the hero in Dante's poetic memory.