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Dante’s Inferno deals with sins of wrong belief, as well as wrong action. In this lecture, we analyze Canto 10, where sinners are punished for heresy. According to Christian doctrine, heresy is the sin of wrong belief. But Dante’s analysis goes much deeper than the textbook definition. In this circle are punished the Ghibelline leader Farinata and his Guelf tombmate Cavalcante. Dante links the sin of heresy with partisan politics. The pilgrim’s encounter with these two sinners is especially dramatic, because it deals with two of his own major interests. With Farinata, he argues about politics and with Cavalcante, he discusses poetry. In both cases, we see that heresy, like partisan politics, can be seen as a division, a separation of things that should be whole. In this canto, we also see the first clear prediction of Dante’s exile.
