Priscian

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According to the note on line 109 of Canto XV of the Inferno, Priscian is identified with Priscian of Caesarea, a sixth-century grammar teacher and author of the widely circulated Institutiones gramaticae, the most commonly used Latin grammar in the Middle Ages. The note itself points out that no sources declare him guilty of sodomy, and advances the hypothesis that in Dante's time his figure was confused with that of the heretical bishop Priscillian, head of a fourth-century sect to which such a sin was attributed. The same note nevertheless considers it more likely that Priscian represents, as the most celebrated of pedagogues, the category of teachers, whom medieval tradition was accustomed to accuse of sodomy. Line 109 places him explicitly among the damned who file past in the procession of the seventh circle, designated by the formula turba grama. The note on line 110 pairs him with Francesco d'Accorso, son of the jurist Accursio and a Bolognese teacher, with whom he forms the pair of the two litterati of great renown indicated by Brunetto before the mention of the Florentine clerk.