In brief, Dante was described by Foscolo, as an angry, bilious detractor of the Roman Church who, in the Inferno of the Divine Comedy, condemned Pope Niccolo III (Giovanni Gaetano Orsini - member of the prominent Orsini family from Rome) to spend eternity in the Third Bolgia of the Eighth Circle, headfirst in a hole, whose punishment was due to those who committed simony, such as greed for power and other ecclesiastical crimes. In a first time Pope Niccolo' III had been appointed head of the Inquisition as Giovanni Gaetano Orsini (1282), and only after his election as Pope (1277), he took name Nicholas III. This Pope is remembered in the official Italian history, because he was able to expand the papal political control also on parts of Romagna, as far as north Bologna and Ferrara. …show more content…
19.52-7), and it was in that occasion that Nicholas III prophesied the damnation of both, Boniface VIII and Pope Clement V. In short, Dante puts many popes and bishops of the Roman Church in the hell, in order to enable them to expiate their sins, also accusing the Roman Church to be guilty of both crimes, prostitution and slavery for money, identifying it with the beast of the Apocalypse, because its actions were strongly in contrast with the primitive belief on the frugality and poverty of the early church: “E mentr'io li cantava cotai note/ o tra o coscienza che il mordesse/ forte spingeva con ombre puote'”. (…) So, Foscolo saw in Dante a man, who felt himself outraged by the crimes of the Roman