Commentary Inf XXVII 85-93

Guido's vicious slam of Boniface, with its concomitant enthusiasm for the abandoned devotion to crusading, is not in any respect at odds with Dante's own thoughts. Boniface is attacking Palestrina and its Christian inhabitants, none of whom had joined the Saracens in their re-taking of Acre in 1291, until then the only remaining Christian possession in the Holy Land, or gone there only to do business with the enemy. Instead of attacking the infidel (or back-sliding Christians) he moves against his co-religionists. For a quite different view, one which holds that Dante was in fact critical of earlier papal exhortations to engage in crusading, see Schildgen (Schi.1998.1).

Boniface cares nothing for Christians, according to Guido (and Dante). Not only does he not oppose the heathen in order to make war on his own, he does not honor his own holy orders, nor those of Guido the friar. The use of the term capestro (cord) here has implications for those who believe that the corda at Inferno XVI.106 is a reference to Dante's status as a Franciscan. (See C.Inf.XVI.106-108.)