Attila

Profile

Attila is remembered by Dante in the Inferno as a terrible devastator of Italy. In Canto XII, among the centaurs who guard Phlegethon, Nessus points out to the two poets those whom the medieval historiographical tradition designated as flagellum Dei, that is, the great predators who afflicted the peninsula, and qualifies Attila with the appellation of "scourge on earth." An authorized note specifies that Dante takes up the surname attributed to the king of the Huns, who in the 5th century sacked and devastated Italy. In Canto XIII, a Florentine suicide, speaking of his own city, alludes to a legend according to which Attila's passage would have reduced it to ashes, leaving only some mutilated remains of the statue of Mars near the river. A note warns that the tradition adopted here by Dante actually confused Attila with Totila. Dante thus mentions Attila as a historical figure linked to the devastations of Italy and, indirectly, to the mythical destruction of Florence.