Filippo Argenti

   Tutti gridavano: A Filippo Argenti!
E ’l fiorentino spirito bizzarro
in sé medesmo si volvea co’ denti.

(Inferno VIII.61-63)

   Everyone yelled, Get Filippo Argenti!
and the wild Florentine spirit
turned with his teeth upon himself.

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Among the wrathful souls of Hell’s fifth circle, Dante meets Filippo Argenti degli Adimari de’ Cavicciuli, a wealthy and famously irritable nobleman who belonged to the Cavicciuli branch of the noble family of the Adimari. Like the rest of his consorteria, he was probably a member of the Black Guelphs. It is said that he had the irksome habit of riding through Florence’s narrow streets with his stirrups stretched out wide so that pedestrians had to duck into alleyways to avoid being whacked in the head by a boot.

As Dante crosses the Styx, he finds Argenti slithering in mud alongside other wrathful sinners. When Argenti attacks the boat, Dante the Pilgrim ironically gets angry.

Below: Doré’s depiction of the scene

Above: the same scene portrayed by Stradanus.

Boccaccio describes the man like this: “Filippo Argenti, according to what Coppo di Borghese Domenichi used to say, was an extremely wealthy knight, so wealthy that he once had a horse he used to ride shod with silver, an act from which derived his nickname. He was a man of large stature, dark and muscular, and of great physical strength. More irascible than anyone else, he used to get angry for the least little reason, but other than these two things, each blameworthy in itself, nothing more is known about him. The author describes him condemned to this torment on account of his being very hot-tempered.” (Expositions on Dante’s Comedy VIII.lit.68)

Coat of arms of the Cavicciuli family

Coat of arms of the Adimari family