1:08:10
Because of his avarice and his betrayal
of the emperor's trust...
1:08:13
Pier del la Vigna was disgraced,
blinded and imprisoned.
1:08:17
Dante's pilgrim finds Pier del la Vigna
on the seventh level of the Inferno...
1:08:23
and, like Judas Iscariot,
he died by hanging.
1:08:26
So Judas and Pier del la Vigna
are linked in Dante...
1:08:29
by the avarice
he saw in them.
1:08:31
In fact, avarice and hanging
are linked in the medieval mind.
1:08:35
This is the earliest known
depiction of the Crucifixion...
1:08:39
carved on an ivory box in Gaul
about A.D. 400.
1:08:43
It includes the death
by hanging of Judas...
1:08:48
his face upturned
to the branch that suspends him.
1:08:50
Here he is again on the doors
of the Benevento Cathedral...
1:08:53
this time
with his bowels falling out.
1:09:03
It wasn't easy, but I got this number
without tellin' them why--
1:09:06
- Sorry.
- Not at all. Welcome.
1:09:09
- Pleasejoin us.
- Thank you.
1:09:12
On this plate from the
15th-century edition of the Inferno...
1:09:15
Pier del la Vigna's body
hangs from a bleeding tree.
1:09:18
I will not belabour the obvious
parallel with Judas Iscariot...
1:09:21
but Dante Alighieri
needed no drawn illustration.
1:09:24
It was his genius to make
Pier del la Vigna, now in hell...
1:09:29
speak in strained hisses
and coughing sibilants...
1:09:31
as though
he is hanging still.
1:09:58
Avarice, hanging...