Commentary Purg VI 19-24

The first of these two is Count Orso degli Alberti della Cerbaia, murdered by his cousin, Count Alberto da Mangona, ca. 1286.  Their respective fathers, Napoleone and Alessandro degli Alberti da Mangona, have been seen locked in eternal hatred, in Caïna, as treacherous to kindred in [Inf XXXII 40-60].  Like father, like cousin.

      The only non-Italian in the group, and the first of them to die (in 1278), is the Frenchman, Pierre de la Brosse.  See Broccia, Pier dalla.  Dante seems to have believed the common version of the story, which would put Mary of Brabant (in our day a province of Belgium) not in purgatory, where her victim has his victory, but in hell (probably in the last of the Malebolge along with Potiphar's wife ([Inf XXX 97]) if she failed to repent her evildoing.  Since she lived almost as long as Dante would (she died on 12 January 1321), one wonders if she became aware of this warning.  It should also be remembered that Mary's son did in fact become king of France and that Dante allowed his father salvation (we see Philip III, the Bold, in ante-purgatorio [[Purg VII 103-111]] but we see him lamenting the reign of his and Mary's son, Philip IV, the Fair, referred to as 'the plague of France' at [Purg VII 109]).

      This Pierre, a loyal courtier done in by the envy rampant at his court, reminds Benvenuto da Imola (DDP Benvenuto.Purg.VI.19-24) of Dante's Pier della Vigna (Inf. XIII), also freed by the poet from culpability in betraying his king.  But such a judgment fails to consider the far greater problem of Pier's suicide, which, whatever his guilt with regard to the affairs of the kingdom, betrayed Christ, a greater King.  Pierre, like Pier, is allowed to speak in his own defense about his political situation, and Dante allows him, like Pier, his say, without in either case necessarily accepting their claims as facts.  That this Pierre is saved probably makes his words more believable -- those on the mountain or in the heavens speak truthfully, as far as we can determine, in all cases; those in hell are surely less reliable.

      Benvenuto's gloss is also responsible for buttressing the myth that Dante actually went to Paris and there learned the truths of this case.  There is no evidence to support the notion that such a journey ever occurred.