Because of his avarice and his betrayal of the Emperor's trust Pier Della Vigna was disgraced, blinded and imprisoned. Dante's pilgrim finds Pier Della Vigna on the seventh level of the Inferno, and like Judas Iscariot he died by hanging. So Judas and Pier Della Vigna are linked in Dante by the avarice he saw in them. In fact, avarice and hanging are linked in the medieval mind. This is the earliest known depiction of the crucifixion carved on an ivory box in Gaul about A.D. 400. It includes the death by hanging of Judas, his face upturned to the branch that suspends him. Here he is again on the doors of the Benevento Cathedral hanging this time with his bowels falling out. On this plate from the 15th Century edition of the \"Inferno\" Pier Della Vigna's body hangs from a bleeding tree. I will not belabor the obvious parallel with Judas Iscariot, but Dante Alighieri needed no drawn illustration. It was his genius to make Pier Della Vigna now in hell speak in strained hisses and coughing sibilants as though he is hanging still.
\"Come l’altre verrem per nostre spoglie, ma non però ch’alcuna sen rivesta, ché non è giusto aver ciò ch’om si toglie. Qui le trascineremo, e per la mesta selva saranno i nostri corpi appesi, ciascuno al prun de l’ombra sua molesta.\" Avarice, hanging, self-destruction.