Marco

Profile

Marco presents himself to Dante as a Lombard, saying he was called Marco. Historical information about him is scarce: the sources remember him as a wise man of the court and lover of peace, present in the courts of northern Italy, probably for a long time with Gherardo da Camino in Treviso, and in Tuscany with Count Ugolino. His moral profile, close to that of Dante, makes him the designated interlocutor to address the central themes of Dante's meditation: free will, the causes of the corruption of the world, and the relationship between Church and Empire. In the walking conversation on the cornice of the wrathful, Marco is a voice-only figure, because the smoke of the cornice hides him from view. The dialogue is abruptly interrupted when the group reaches the edge of the cloud, beyond which only souls already purified can approach the angel who guards the step of pardon.