Commentary Purg XXIII 32-33

In the faces of the penitents, hollow-eyed, pale, skeletal, an observer might read only the 'm' formed by the combination of cheekbones, eyebrows, and nose, but not the 'o's of the eyes, shrunken from view.  Longfellow (DDP Longfellow.Purg.XXIII.32), Scartazzini (DDP Scartazzini.Purg.XXIII.32), and others present a passage from one Berthold, a Franciscan of Regensburg (Germany), which describes the 'letters' found in human faces, first the 'omo' (Latin homo) that is man's name and then the 'dei' (Latin genitive of deus, 'of God'); our faces announce that each of us is a 'man of God.'