Melisende of Jerusalem may have been the Countess of Tripoli, famous because the French poet and troubadour Jaufré Rudel, Prince of Blaye, fell in love with her. Continue reading “DANTE’S PILLS: 3. Melisende Of Jerusalem”
Divine Comedy
DANTE’S PILLS: 2. Phalaris’ Bull
From Ovid’s Tristia, we learn that the tyrant of Agrigento (town in Sicily, region once called Magna Graecia –Big Greece-) Phalaris commissioned to the Athenian Perillos the handcrafting of a big bronze -or copper- bull (Inf. XXVII) where he would lock up his enemies and kill them horribly, making them roast slowly while trapped inside it. Today this manufacture is known as the “brazen bull”, “bronze bull”, or “Sicilian bull”. Continue reading “DANTE’S PILLS: 2. Phalaris’ Bull”