Zimmer: Let My Home Be My Gallows

Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei…
Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei…
HANNIBAL:
Because of his avarice, and his betrayal of the emperor’s trust,
Pier della Vigna was disgraced, blinded, and imprisoned. Dante’s pilgrim finds
Pier della Vigna on the seventh level of the Inferno. Like Judas Iscariot,
he died by hanging. But Judas and Pier della Vigna are linked in Dante by the
avarice he saw in them. In fact avarice and hanging are linked in the medieval
mind
Now this is the earliest known depiction of the Crucifixion, carved on an ivory
box in Gaul, about A.D. four hundred. It includes the death by hanging of Judas,
his face upturned to the branch that suspends him. Here he is again on the
doors of the Benevento cathedral, hanging. This time with his bowels falling
out
Now on this plate from the fifteenth-century edition of the Inferno Pier della
Vigna’s body hangs from a bleeding tree. I will not belabour the obvious
parallel with Judas Iscariot, but Dante Alighieri needed no drawn illustration:
It is his genius to make Pier della Vigna, now in Hell, speak in strained
hisses and coughing sibilants as though he is hanging still
Come l’altre verrem per nostre spoglie
Ma non però ch’alcuna sen rivesta
Ché non è giusto aver ciò ch’om si toglie
Qui le trascineremo, e per la mesta
Selva saranno i nostri corpi appesi
Ciascuno al prun de l’ombra sua molesta
Avarice, hanging, self destruction
Io fei gibbetto a me le mie case
Make my own home be my gallows