Ottavo cerchio - Bolgia VII - Ladri

Seventeenth 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 seventh bolgia hosts the thieves: they are tormented by snakes, which bite them and bind their hands, turn into snakes themselves, merge with them or incinerate themselves at the snakes' bite, only to magically recompose themselves.