SOURCE: Nevin, Thomas. “Ser Brunetto's Immortality: Inferno XV.” Dante Studies 96 (1978): 21-37.

In the following essay, Nevin argues that Dante's placement of Brunetto in the seventh circle of hell in the Inferno, alongside the sodomites, usurers, and blasphemers, is meant to suggest the Florentine scholar's embodiment of the “sterility of intellectual pride” rather than his guilt for engaging in the physical sin of sodomy.

In the Pilgrim's meeting with Brunetto Latini (Inferno XV), Dante creates an episode of poignant intimacy unsurpassed in all of the Commedia. Clearly, it seems, Dante intends that, like the hapless Pier della Vigna, Brunetto should compel our sympathy and, like the awesome Farinata, command our respect. The deferential “voi” (vv. 30, 35, 80, 83) by which the Pilgrim addresses his former master serves to convey a pity and a reverence tinged with irony. But unlike Pier, Farinata, or any other citizen of Dis, Brunetto holds a special claim...