Abstract

Using the so-called ‘cord enigma’ at the end of Inferno XVI as a springboard, this essay aims to demonstrate that the key to understanding the apparition of the beasts in the first canto of the Comedia lies here, in the close semiotic relationship between Geryon and the leopard. Evidence to support the theory that the leopard is indeed an allegory for fraud emerges through a careful analysis of the meanings attached this beast (both as pardus and lynx) in the Graeco-Latin, biblical and patristic traditions familiar to Dante.

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