Flemings

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The Flemings are mentioned in Inferno XV, 4, where Dante names them as a historical-geographical example: "Quali Fiamminghi tra Guizzante e Bruggia" ("Even as the Flemings, between Wissant and Bruges"). The reference is geographically situated in Flanders, between the cities of Wissant and Bruges, both well known to Florentine merchants in Dante's time. The note to the verse specifies that the two cities were commercial centers well known to the Florentines and that the Flemings built dikes there (called "lo schermo," the defense) to protect themselves from the high tide ("fiotto"). The Flemings appear within a simile that compares their work of containing the sea waters to the embankments built on the bank of the boiling river in the seventh circle of Hell. A later note (to v. 10) confirms that the analogy with the Paduans of the Brenta refers precisely to this work of embanking, compared to the embankments upon which Dante and Virgil walk.