Michele Zanche

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Michele Zanche, lord of Logudoro in Sardinia, is cited in the Commedia as the father of Branca Doria's wife. According to the tradition reported in the notes, Branca Doria, aspiring to seize the judicature, invited him to a banquet and had him slaughtered along with all his retinue. Dante places him explicitly among the barrators, in the same bolgia where he previously mentioned Frate Gomita. The crime, approximately dated to 1294, is presented as the treachery from which the damnation of the son-in-law arose, whose soul detached itself instantly from the body to occupy the place用意 in the afterlife. The death of the father-in-law is recalled in the scene of Canto XXXIII through the name itself, indicating a continuity between the two episodes of barratry.