Pietro Della Vigna - in The Divine Comedy

In The Divine Comedy

As a suicide, he appears as one of the damned in the Woods of Suicide in The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Circle VII, ring ii, Canto XIII: Violent against self. Vigne reveals his identity to the travelers Dante and Virgil: "I am he that held both keys of Frederick's heart/ To lock and to unlock; and well I knew/ To turn them with so exquisite an art."

Dante's portrayal of della Vigna emphasises his skill as a rhetorician. His syntax is complex and tangled, like the thornbushes. At one point, Dante echoes it: "I think he thought that I was thinking" (John Ciardi translation). In placing him among the suicides rather than the traitors, Dante is affirming that della Vigna was falsely accused.

In the 19th century, William Blake illustrated the Divine Comedy and depicted della Vigne in The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides.