The Seventh Bolgia: Thieves and Vanni Fucci

Dante and Virgil climb to the seventh Bolgia, where the thieves are tormented by serpents. The sinners run naked and terrified, their hands bound with serpents. A serpent transfixes Vanni Fucci at the neck; he burns to ashes and then regenerates, like a phoenix. Vanni Fucci, a bestial man from Pistoia, confesses to stealing the sacristy's ornaments and falsely accusing another. He prophesies the defeat of the Bianchi at Campo Piceno, intending to give Dante pain. This episode introduces the theme of metamorphosis and the contrapasso of the thieves: their sin of taking what is not theirs is punished by the constant theft of their own forms.