In Dante's poetic cosmology the figure identified by commentators as Ciampolo is presented as a former servant and corrupt official from Navarre. The canto records him saying he was born in the kingdom of Navarre, that his mother placed him in service to a lord, that he served King Theobald II (Thibault) and that he practised barratry (corrupt solicitation). Dante's poem itself does not supply the proper name; the name "Ciampolo" (also attested as Giampolo, a contraction of Giovanni Paolo) is an identification supplied by early commentators and later tradition linking the anonymous speaker to a recognizable historical type.
Dante's text places Ciampolo immersed in boiling pitch in the fifth bolgia reserved for grafters. He is physically hooked and hauled out of the pitch by the Malebranche devils; illustrations and commentary emphasize the scene of his extraction and torment rather than individual physiognomic detail. The poem gives no descriptive clothing or personal features beyond his state as a sinner in the pitch and the violent handling by infernal custodians.
Ciampolo possesses no supernatural powers in the sources; his actions are human behaviors narrated by Dante. When hauled out of the pitch he speaks with Dante and Virgil, naming other grafters and recounting his origin and sin. He displays cunning and deceit: under threat from the Malebranche he manipulates them—provoking quarrel and confusion among the devils—and uses that ruse to escape back into the boiling pitch. These capacities are presented as consistent with his earthly vice (barratry) rather than as magical abilities.
Weaknesses
- conditioncorporeal restraint within the bolgia (immersion in boiling pitch)
- othersubject to capture and torment by Malebranche devils
Wards
- otherMalebranche oversight (devils as custodians of the bolgia)
Beatrice Portinari
Beatrice (Bice) di Folco Portinari appears in Dante Alighieri's works as the personified embodiment of beatific love, divine grace, and theological vision who intercedes for and ultimately guides the pilgrim from human reason into Paradise. Historically she may be a Florentine woman documented in late 13th-century records, but the literary Beatrice is primarily a theological and allegorical figure within Dante's poetic cosmology.
Dante's Satan
In Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Canto XXXIV) Satan is the immobilized, diminished former angel who occupies the lowest point of Hell (the Ninth Circle, Judecca). He is the poetic embodiment of pride and the ultimate traitor, frozen in the central ice while eternally chewing the three chief traitors.
Chông Tị (Four Immortals)
One of the Four Immortals in Vietnamese mythology, associated with immortality and appearing on a golden dragon. (Note: - Power tier: Greater (not Primordial) - Chông Tị is associated with longevity and appears on a divine entity (golden dragon), but not cosmic in scope. - Abilities: Remove "His immortality implies ext)
Chōchin'obake
A Japanese yōkai depicted as an animate or transformed paper/silk lantern (chōchin). Best known from Edo-period and later pictorial, theatrical, and popular-culture imagery, it functions as a stock visual character of an object-turned-obake rather than as a widely attested regional oral spirit.
Chōchinbi
Chōchinbi (提灯火, "paper-lantern fire") are regionally reported Japanese atmospheric spirit-lights treated as a variety of onibi. Tales describe them as lantern-like floating flames seen near footpaths, rice fields, riverbanks, and graveyards, sometimes vanishing when approached and sometimes associated with animal yōkai or resentful human spirits.
Chūjō-hime
Chūjō-hime is a legendary aristocratic woman in Japanese Pure Land devotional tradition who becomes a nun and exemplary holy woman credited in later hagiography with the miraculous weaving of the Taima Mandala; she functions as a model of filial piety, female salvation, and as a focal figure for relics, embroideries, and etoki preaching.
Ciacco
Ciacco is a named damned soul who appears in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto VI) among the gluttonous; he converses with Dante and, within the poem, offers a prophetic speech about Florentine political strife. The figure is later reused in medieval and Renaissance literature (notably Boccaccio's Decameron) as a stock gluttonous character.
Cicones
The Cicones (Greek Κίκονες, Latinized Cicones or Ciconians) are a Homeric Thracian tribe associated with the town of Ismarus (Ismara) on the south coast of Thrace. In epic sources they appear as a martial human people who repel Odysseus' raiders after the sack of Ismarus (Odyssey Book IX) and are listed among allies in the Iliad; they are treated as a human ethnic/political group rather than as supernatural beings.
Cigau
The Cigau is a name used locally in Sumatra for a reported mid-sized feline cryptid, described in contemporary popular and cryptozoology sources as a golden, short-tailed cat seen near Bangko and Mount Kerinci. Sources treat it as a disputed physical animal rather than a figure of indigenous cosmology.
Cigfa
Cigfa (Middle Welsh: Kigua) is a mortal woman in the medieval Welsh Mabinogi cycles, known as the wife of Pryderi of Dyfed. A minor narrative figure in the Third Branch (Manawydan fab Llyr), she remains with Manawydan during the enchantment of Dyfed and functions as a domestic and relational character whose presence highlights Manawydan's virtues.
Ciguapa
The ciguapa is a nocturnal humanoid figure from Dominican and neighboring Caribbean folklore, most often depicted as a wild, preternatural woman of the mountain forests and rivers. Tales present her variously as a seductive siren-like being who lures men, a mischievous nature spirit, a jealous and sorrowful literary figure, or—in some variants—a violent or cannibalistic creature; she functions in oral and literary traditions as a cautionary forest figure and a marker in shifting cultural narratives.
Cihuateteo
In Aztec tradition, the Cihuateteo (Cihuātēteoh; sing. Cihuātēotl) are the spirits of women who died in childbirth. They occupy an honored cosmic role—guiding the sun toward the west—and, on five calendar days, were believed to descend to the earth as dangerous nocturnal spirits who must be propitiated.
Community Record
- [1]Ciampolo - Wikipedia. Wikipedia, article 'Ciampolo'wiki
- [2]Inferno 22 – Digital Dante (Columbia). Digital Dante, Columbia University — Inferno Canto XXII text and commentaryliterary
- [3]Grafters. Ciampolo | Uffizi Galleries. Uffizi Galleries: commentary and excerpt related to Ciampolo's speechliterary
- [4]Old Book Illustrations: The Ditch of the Corrupt Officials: Devils Tormenting Ciampolo. Illustrations and art-historical representations of the Ciampolo episodeother
- [5]Meditations on the Divine Comedy: Inferno 22 to 28 — A. S. Kline. A. S. Kline, commentary and translation of Inferno XXIIliterary