Characters
Characters of the Divine Comedy
Explore the protagonists and figures Dante meets on his journey.
| Personaggio | Tipologia | Menzioni | Versi collegati | Descrizione |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minotaur | Mythological | 1 | 1 | Monstrous being half man and half bull, born of Pasiphaë and a bull, imprisoned in the labyrinth of Crete, represented by Dante as pure bestiality. |
| Myrrha | Mythological | 1 | 1 | Ovidian mythological character cited by Dante as an example of a falsifier of person. Defined as «wicked», she embodied deceit against her father Cinyras. |
| Monaldi | Families and factions | 1 | 1 | Family of Orvieto cited by Cacciaguida as an example of the Italian factions troubled by internal struggles, presented as Ghibelline and already defeated. |
| Montecchi | Families and factions | 1 | 1 | Veronese family cited by Sordello da Goito among the Ghibelline and Guelph houses that tore Lombardy apart until the mid-thirteenth century. |
| Moronto | Families and factions | 1 | 1 | Brother of Cacciaguida, recalled by Cacciaguida himself in the Earthly Paradise of Paradise (XV, 136). |
| Mosca | Families and factions | 1 | 2 | Historical Florentine figure, belonging to the Lamberti, a Ghibelline. Remembered as the advisor of the killing of Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, he is punished among the sowers of discord. |
| Muses | Deity | 3 | 4 | The Muses are the divinities of poetic inspiration invoked by Dante at the beginning of each cantica as aid for his literary enterprise. |
| Naiads | Mythological | 1 | 1 | Nymphs of the rivers cited by Dante in Canto XXXIII of Purgatorio, recalled in relation to the enigma of the Sphinx and the interpretation of the shout of Eduardo. |
| Narcissus | Mythological | 1 | 1 | Mythological figure mentioned in Canto XXX of the Inferno: the authorized note identifies the water in which he gazed at his reflection, falling in love with his own mirrored face, as Narcissus. |
| Nasidius | Mythological | 1 | 1 | A soldier in the army of Cato of Utica who, bitten by a serpent in the Libyan desert, swelled until his armor burst, reducing himself to a shapeless mass. Dante cites him in Inferno XXV, v. 95. |
| Nathan the prophet | Biblical figures | 1 | 1 | Old Testament prophet cited by Cacciaguida in the Heaven of Mars among the spirits who preceded the coming of Christ and who now shine forth in the white rose of the blessed. |
| Nella | Unclassified | 1 | 1 | Dante's Nella, remembered by Forese Donati in Purgatorio XXIII, 87 with heartfelt lament. |
| Nimrod | Biblical figures | 2 | 4 | Giant encountered by Dante and Virgil in Hell, linked to the biblical memory of the Tower of Babel. He pronounces incomprehensible words, a sign of confused language, and embodies the pride of man who rises against God. |
| Neri | Families and factions | 1 | 1 | The Neri of Pistoia were the political faction driven out of the city in May 1301, when the Pistoian Bianchi, with the help of the Florentines, gained the upper hand over the leaders of the Black faction. |
| Nessus | Mythological | 2 | 3 | Mythological centaur present in the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno, where he serves as guardian of the violent against their neighbors. |
| Neptune | Deity | 2 | 2 | God of the sea, personification of the waters in the Commedia. In Inferno XXVIII he is invoked as tutelary deity of the Mediterranean, while in Paradiso XXXIII he is remembered for having fixed his gaze in wonder upon the ship Argo. |
| Niccolò | Popes and clergy | 2 | 2 | Niccolò is mentioned by Dante in the Inferno among the Sienese alchemists and in the Purgatorio as an example of virtue, identifiable with Saint Nicholas of Myra. |
| Nino | Rulers and nobles | 1 | 1 | Assyrian king mentioned by Dante as the predecessor and husband of Semiramis, the queen who ruled over ancient Babylon. |
| Niobe | Mythological | 1 | 1 | Niobe is recalled by Dante in Purgatorio as an example of punished pride: her limbs, scattered across the ground, are the spectacle that stirs the poet's imagination among the bas-reliefs of Canto XII. |
| Nisus | Mythological | 1 | 1 | Young Virgilian hero cited by Dante in Canto I of the Inferno among those who fell in the conflict between Trojans and Latins for Latium. |
| Noah | Biblical figures | 2 | 2 | Noah is recalled by Dante in Limbo among the great spirits of Canto IV, and his name returns in Paradiso XII in relation to the covenant with God and the rainbow, the sign of the promise never again to destroy humanity with the flood. |
| Holofernes | Biblical figures | 1 | 1 | Assyrian general recalled by Dante as an example of punished pride, killed by the Assyrians according to the account in Purgatorio. |
| Homer | Poets and thinkers | 1 | 1 | Ancient poet received in the castle of Limbo, designated by Virgil as «Homer, sovereign poet» and placed at the head of the «noble school» of poets who with him honor the name of poet. |
| Honorius III | Popes and clergy | 1 | 1 | Pope Honorius III, remembered in Paradiso XI as the pontiff who confirmed with a bull the Franciscan rule already approved orally by Innocent III in 1210. |