Ottavo cerchio - Bolgia X - Falsari

Twentieth painting in the 'Inferno di Dante Alighieri' series.

The eighth circle of Hell, also know as Malebolge, is a large, funnel-shaped cavern, itself divided into ten concentric circular trenches or ditches. Each trench is called a bolgia (Italian for "pouch" or "ditch").

The tenth and last bolgia hosts the falsifiers: they are disfigured by various diseases: leprosy and scabies for alchemists (metal forgers), hydrophobic rabies for impostors (people forgers), dropsy for counterfeiters (coin forgers) and fever for liars (word forgers).