Belisarius

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Belisarius is mentioned in Dante's Paradiso, within the speech that Justinian addresses to Dante in the Heaven of Mercury, when the emperor recalls having entrusted him with military activity. He is remembered in the notes as a great and famous commander, to whom Justinian entrusted arms so that he could devote himself entirely to juridical work. The notes further report that Belisarius drove the Vandals out of Africa and reconquered Italy occupied by the Goths, reestablishing the geographical unity of the Empire from East to West, and that he was openly supported by heaven in his enterprises, so much so that he represented for Justinian a sign of the need to abstain from war. The notes observe that Justinian was in reality ungrateful toward him, having him imprisoned on the accusations of the envious, and that Dante may have ignored this episode, as does Villani, or alternatively that the use of the affectionate possessive "my" is meant to be a retraction by the emperor toward the unrecognized subject.