Chapter 5 · Malebolgeone of the damnedCircle VIIIBeing built

Vanni Fucci

The thief from Pistoia who blasphemes with his hands, and the serpents take him.

The body the game gives to the damned, turning on itself: sixteen views rendered from the game itself.
Not a portrait of this one. The game gives almost every damned soul the same body, and this is it: what tells them apart is where they stand and what they do.

Vanni Fucci, pistoiese, che rubò gli arredi della sacrestia di San Iacopo e ne fece incolpare un altro. Dice di sé che vita bestiale gli piacque, e non umana.

What the game says

«Togli, Dio, ch’a te le squadro!»

Inf. XXV 3
Revealswhat happens in the seventh ditch once Vanni Fucci has spoken.

Vanni Fucci stole the furnishings of the sacristy of San Iacopo and had another man blamed for it; in the poem he raises both hands in an obscene sign against heaven, and the serpents are on him at once. In the game it is a scene that starts by itself: he notices whoever comes within twenty-two metres, says his piece, and from there on the seventh ditch is no longer still.

He burns, comes apart and puts himself back together, which is what happens to him in the canto; and meanwhile the serpents climb onto the banks and begin to follow the trace of a living body all the way to the well. It is the point where the second half of the chapter changes colour, and nothing announces it.

The numbers

WhatHow much
Range at which he notices you22 m

Links

Found in
The Seventh Ditch, the Thieves
See also
The Serpents
Named by
The Serpents, The Seventh Ditch, the Thieves

Planned, and it may never reach the finished game.

As it stood on 19 September 2026.