<Li> Bolgia 1--Panderers and seducers: These sinners make two files, one along either bank of the ditch, and march quickly in opposite directions while being whipped by horned demons for eternity . They "deliberately exploited the passions of others and so drove them to serve their own interests, are themselves driven and scourged". Dante makes reference to a recent traffic rule developed for the Jubilee year of 1300 in Rome . In the group of panderers, the poets notice Venedico Caccianemico, a Bolognese Guelph who sold his own sister Ghisola to the Marchese d'Este . In the group of seducers, Virgil points out Jason, the Greek hero who led the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece from Aeëtes, King of Colchis . He gained the help of the king's daughter, Medea, by seducing and marrying her only to later desert her for Creusa . Jason had previously seduced Hypsipyle when the Argonauts landed at Lemnos on their way to Colchis, but "abandoned her, alone and pregnant". </Li> <Li> Bolgia 2--Flatterers: These also exploited other people, this time abusing and corrupting language to play upon others' desires and fears . They are steeped in excrement (representative of the false flatteries they told on earth) as they howl and fight amongst themselves . Alessio Interminei of Lucca and Thaïs are seen here . </Li> <Ul> <Li> Bolgia 3--Simoniacs: Dante now forcefully expresses his condemnation of those who committed simony, or the sale of ecclesiastic favors and offices, and therefore made money for themselves out of what belongs to God: "Rapacious ones, who take the things of God, / that ought to be the brides of Righteousness, / and make them fornicate for gold and silver! / The time has come to let the trumpet sound / for you; ...". The sinners are placed head - downwards in round, tube - like holes within the rock (debased mockeries of baptismal fonts), with flames burning the soles of their feet . The heat of the fire is proportioned to their guilt . The simile of baptismal fonts gives Dante an incidental opportunity to clear his name of an accusation of malicious damage to the font at the Baptistery of San Giovanni . Simon Magus, who offered gold in exchange for holy power to Saint Peter and after whom the sin is named, is mentioned here (although Dante does not encounter him). One of the sinners, Pope Nicholas III, must serve in the hellish baptism by fire from his death in 1280 until 1303--the arrival in Hell of Pope Boniface VIII--who will take his predecessor's place in the stone tube until 1314, when he will in turn be replaced by Pope Clement V, a puppet of King Philip IV of France who moved the Papal See to Avignon, ushering in the Avignon Papacy (1309--77). Dante delivers a denunciation of simoniacal corruption of the Church . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Bolgia 3--Simoniacs: Dante now forcefully expresses his condemnation of those who committed simony, or the sale of ecclesiastic favors and offices, and therefore made money for themselves out of what belongs to God: "Rapacious ones, who take the things of God, / that ought to be the brides of Righteousness, / and make them fornicate for gold and silver! / The time has come to let the trumpet sound / for you; ...". The sinners are placed head - downwards in round, tube - like holes within the rock (debased mockeries of baptismal fonts), with flames burning the soles of their feet . The heat of the fire is proportioned to their guilt . The simile of baptismal fonts gives Dante an incidental opportunity to clear his name of an accusation of malicious damage to the font at the Baptistery of San Giovanni . Simon Magus, who offered gold in exchange for holy power to Saint Peter and after whom the sin is named, is mentioned here (although Dante does not encounter him). One of the sinners, Pope Nicholas III, must serve in the hellish baptism by fire from his death in 1280 until 1303--the arrival in Hell of Pope Boniface VIII--who will take his predecessor's place in the stone tube until 1314, when he will in turn be replaced by Pope Clement V, a puppet of King Philip IV of France who moved the Papal See to Avignon, ushering in the Avignon Papacy (1309--77). Dante delivers a denunciation of simoniacal corruption of the Church . </Li>

Abandon all hope ye who enter here origin