Dante's Inferno Summary of Canto XXIV

Descending lower into the chasm, deep, blackness of Hell,
Dante and Virgil persist despite the mounting fatigue
To the sixth Bolgia in the Eigth Circle where thieves dwell.

The journey, rocky and treacherously wrought with risk
Pushes Dante past the brinks of sheer exertion
As Virgil inspires Dante's spirit to become lively, brisk.

With hands bound by snakes like ropes, biting into skin,
Where naked souls scurried as they looked down from a bridge,
Trapped in a serpent pit for an eternity of death with no end.

Dante watches in mute horror as a snake pierces the neck
Of a man who then burst to flame and hungry fire consumed
And immortal, rose again from ash as a phoenix from the wreck

Virgil speaks to this particular soul to satisfy Dante's thirst
For knowledge and identifies this damned soul as Vanni Fucci,
A Tuscan, spiteful and angry at his incessant demise, cursed.

Dante recognizes Vanni Fucci, a man of "blood and anger" in life
Who robbed a sacristy of a holy treasure then blamed another,
Ashamed of his life, but his resentment still cuts like a knife

Even so vexed, Vanni Fucci is repulsed by Dante's wary eyes
His soul devoured by the consequences of his old life
He prophesizes the ruin of Pistoia in the midst of deathly cries.

Angered by the absence of God, Vanni Fucci seeks no praise
From Dante or Virgil as he lifts his finger in a crude gesture
Left in the cold darkness with morbid interest to criticize.

1. Chasm: a deep opening in the earth's surface
2. Exertion: use of physical or mental energy; hard work
3. Phoenix: a legendary Arabian bird said to periodically burn itself to death and emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix; according to most versions only one phoenix lived at a time and it renewed itself every 500 years
4. Sacristy: a room in a church where sacred vessels and vestments are kept or meetings are held
5. Vexed: troubled persistently especially with petty annoyances