Commentary Inf XIX 90-117

Dante's great outburst of invective against Nicholas (and all simoniac popes) is based on the history of the Church, beginning with Christ's calling of Peter, moving to Peter's and the other apostles' choosing Matthias by lot to take the place of Judas. After Dante alludes to Nicholas's vile maneuvering against the Angevin king, Charles I of Sicily, he returns to the Bible, now to Apoc. 17 (for discussion see Benfill [Benf.1995.1]), interpreted positively as the presentation of the Roman Church as keeper of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Ten Commandments. (For the relationship between the woman here [Rome as honest wife of the Caesars, free of papal constraint] and the whore of Purgatorio XXXII [Rome as the corrupted Church after the Donation of Constantine] see Davis [Davi.1998.1], p. 271.) Dante's oration ends with a final slam at papal worship of 'the golden calf,' joining the final apostrophe of the canto, addressed to Constantine as the source of most of Christianity's troubles when he granted the papacy temporal authority.