Dante's Inferno: Pier Delle Vigna

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Pier delle Vigna was inappropriately charged with the attempted murder of Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor and king of Sicily. He was conspired against by envious people who wanted to see an end to his greatness. Once charged, Pier was jailed, beaten, and had his eyes viciously removed from his skull, blinding him. He saw no hope for his future, and therefore ended his life, by bashing his head against the wall until his brain leapt from his cranium. Pier was the victim of political envy, which is why Dante was so piteous of him in Inferno, Canto XIII. Pier delle Vigna was in the public eye, in a position of power, and this was his tragic flaw. Because of this fact, he was targeted and he fell horrendously down into the second round of the seventh circle of Hell, the Wood of the Suicides, his soul tethered to the life of a gnarled tree.
It is only proper to explain the life of Pier delle Vigna, before his untimely ending and “life” in death. He started out from somewhat humble beginnings. In the footnotes of Inferno, Canto XIII, it states: “Pier’s name means Peter of the Vine, probably because his father had been a simple worker in a vineyard (Dante, Inferno 13).” He attended school at the first university, University of Bologna, which was founded in 1088. Shortly after he finished school in 1220, he was employed by Frederick II as a scribe and notary in his court. “By 1225, he was appointed judge of the Magna Curia, a post he held until 1247. During this period, he executed a wide variety of assignments, diplomatic, secretarial, legal, and judicial. He seems to have been chief compiler of Liber Augustalis, Frederick’s massive revision of the law for his subjects in the regno of Sicily; he organized and supervised the bureaucracy needed to administer this legal code; he seems to have tailored the curriculum at the University of Naples to produce the bureaucrats that the system required. In 1239, Piero was named co-director of the imperial chancery. In 1247, the title ‘imperialis aulae protonotarius et regni Siciliae logotheta’ was created for him, defining his already established position as the most powerful and influential member of Frederick’s court (Stephany, par. 2).” His career reached farther than many gave him credit for, as he took part in the creation of many different legal documents under the order of Frederick II. Shortly after he attained the previously mentioned title, he was accused of treachery.
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Pier said, “The courtesan who constantly surveyed Caesar’s household with her adulterous eyes, mankind’s undoing, the special vice of courts, inflamed the hearts of everyone against me, and these, inflamed, inflamed in turn Augustus (Frederick is referred to here as ‘Caesar’ and ‘Augustus’ because he sought to imitate the imperial court of Rome), and my happy honors turned into sad laments (Dante, Inferno 13.64-69).” The people he once trusted became envious of him, and sought to remove him from his favorable position, and unfortunately succeeded in their task. Dante was piteous of Pier della Vigna for a few reasons. Pier was also a writer, a scholar, and he was revered by many for most of his life. Even though Pier is the one who “held both of the keys that fitted Frederick’s heart. (Dante, Inferno 13.58-59),” Pier states that he would never commit

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