Hell Unearthed

John Paul Getty III was the grandson of the oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty. The grandfather was once the richest person in the world but he was also renowned for being a cheapskate.

Following his parents’ divorce in 1964, John Paul Getty III moved to Rome as a young teenager with his father. His stepmother died of a heroin overdose in 1971 and, although his father returned to England, he remained in the city by himself. 

In 1973, aged 16, John Paul Getty III was kidnapped by the ‘Ndrangheta, a mafia organisation based in Calabria. A ransom note was sent to his mother demanding $17 million.

The family doubted the verity of the kidnapping as not only was John Paul errant and rebellious, but he had previously joked that he would fake his own kidnapping in order to extract money from his rich grandfather.

The story of Pier della Vigna is told with poignancy by Dante as he was wrongfully charged with treason and was thrown into prison where he committed suicide. 

Pier della Vigna was elected chief counsellor to Emperor Frederick II. and was accused of treachery in 1249. Dante felt that the accusations were inspired by envy at his rapid ascent to favour by the other courtesans and were therefore unfounded.

Dante can’t believe that the thorn bushes are actually souls so Virgil tells him to break off a branch of one of the bushes and the broken off twig starts to speak. Here is an extract from my own translation of Inferno:

Archbishop Ruggieri led the Pisan Ghibellines and for a time was aligned with the Pisan mayor, Count Ugolino. However, Ugolino began to lose support of the Pisan citizens when he ceded a number of Pisan castles to Guelph enemy cities in a pact of peace with them. The Archbishop turned against him when Ugolino managed to kill his nephew in the Pisan riots in 1288.

He was a great Ghibelline leader who fought successfully against the Guelphs and the French who were loyal to the Pope to secure many Italian towns as Ghibelline strongholds. He was regarded as one of the finest Italian soldiers of his time and was noble, wise, gracious and openhearted. He later reconciled himself with the church and became a Franciscan monk.

He is condemned to Hell for having given Pope Boniface VIII, Dante’s most scorned Pope, advice on how to subdue the Pope’s rebel opponents. Guido was at first unwilling to oblige the Pope but was persuaded by the Pope’s promise to forgive him for his treachery.

Firstly, let’s remember Lucifer. He was the most beautiful of God’s angels, but he led the rebellion against God and was sent to Hell where he reigns King of Hell. He is transformed from the most beautiful to the most ugly of God’s creations.

So Judas is the central sinner as he is the disciple who betrayed Christ to the Romans in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, leading to his Christ’s arrest and crucifixion. He is the fall guy for the church.

The other two sinners are joint fall guys for government, which is the second important strand for human happiness and wellbeing in Dante’s philosophy.  The government which Dante aspired to was encapsulated in the Roman Empire and he harks back to this regime as a utopia for Italy and the world.

 Brutus was a devoted supporter of the Roman Republic which was governed by elected officials. Brutus sided with Pompey in the civil war, even though Pompey had killed his father. When Pompey was later defeated, the anti-republican Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, pardoned him and gave him favours and positions of influence. However, he was persuaded by. Cassius to murder Caesar for the good of the Republic.

Funds were donated to rebuild houses, provide sanitation, electricity and drinking water but many charitable organisations failed to apply the funds as intended and large sums were lost to fraud. A number of charities appointed foreign 3rd party contractors who had no local knowledge, and projects suffered bureaucratic delays and embezzlement.

His name was Count Ugolino della Gherardesca. He is placed in the 9th circle of Hell for political treachery as he switched sides between the Guelphs and Ghibellines depending on which side was in the ascendancy. He ultimately is accused of betraying the Guelph party which entrusted him to rule Pisa.

Born in 1220, he belonged to a noble and traditionally Ghibelline family controlling swathes of the Pisan Maremma and Sardinia. As Ghibelline influence in the region began to ebb, Ugolino wanted to preserve his power in Pisa’s surrounding Guelph states such as Florence and Genoa. He conspired with the Guelph leaders in Pisa, the Visconti, but he was accused of attempting to undermine the Pisan government and was banished. 

He later returned to Pisa and gained power and prestige and in 1284 he became mayor alongside his nephew, Nino Visconti.

During this time, Ugolino changed his allegiance back to the Ghibellines whose fortunes were rising again, and he plotted with the Ghibelline Archbishop of Pisa, Ruggieri, to drive out Nino. 

Pisa was unsettled during this period and battles against neighbouring cities continued to threaten the city’s peace. Ugolino was criticised for giving away castles to enemy territories in order to preserve peace. 

Then economic misfortune befell Pisa in 1288, leading to riots and Ugolino (whether intentionally or unintentionally, it is not known) killed a nephew of the Archbishop. This offence led to a revenge attack by Archbishop Ruggieri who incited the citizens of Pisa to burn down the town hall and he gave himself up.

William married Maud in 1166 when she was just 11 and they lived under the rules of the English kings Henry, Richard and John.

William earned the wrath of the Welsh when he committed the Abergavenny murders in 1175, tricking various Welsh princes and leaders to come to a conciliatory dinner and having them murdered by his men.

In 1199, William fought alongside Richard I at Châlus in France when the king was mortally wounded. He supported King John’s claim to the throne and became a court favourite. John gifted him with land and castles, and it is thought that he may have tasked William with the murder of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany.

However, he soon fell out of favour with the king who claimed he owed money from his estates to the Crown and he seized William’s estates across England and Wales.

Maud made no secret of the fact that she believed John had given instructions to murder Arthur and the pair of them were hunted down. William fled to Ireland and then to France disguised as a beggar to evade King John’s capture.

Maud, however, was not so lucky. She was imprisoned with their eldest son, William, in the dungeons at Corfe Castle in Dorset where they starved to death.

Tybalt Capulet is Juliet’s cousin in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet. He plays to the rivalry between his family, the Capulets, and the Montagues. He is loyal to his family, but he is fiery, impetuous and strong-willed.

Emperor Tiberius was the 2nd Roman Emperor ruling from 14-37AD. He succeeded his stepfather, Augustus, and was a highly regarded military commander, receiving honours for his successes.

He had been obliged to divorce the love of his life, Vipsania Agrippina, when Augustus’s daughter, Julia, became widowed. Augustus wanted Julia to be quickly and suitably married and he demanded that Tiberius fulfil that role. However, she was not faithful, and her acts of adultery pushed Tiberius away until he chose to exile himself on the island of Rhodes. There he indulged his sexual fantasies and became angry and resentful with nothing to do.

Augustus did not let him return for almost 10 years but when Tiberius’s mother and Augustus’s second wife, Livia, showed Augustus evidence of Julia’s infidelity, he exiled her, and soon afterwards, he called Tiberius back to Rome.

Augustus would have preferred to see one of Julia’s sons become his heir, but one fell out of favour and the other two died in battle, leaving Tiberius as the only remaining choice to succeed him. Tiberius managed the imperial treasury well and his laws and policies were sensible. However, with the death of his son, he took less interest in the running of the Empire and delegated his authority to Sejanus as chief administrator.