Reginaldo degli Scrovegni

Reginaldo degli Scrovegni was a Paduan nobleman of the Guelph faction who lived in the early 14th century around the time of Giotto and Dante. He is best known for being a wicked usurer, and by association with his son, Enrico degli Scrovegni, who commissioned the famous Arena Chapel by Giotto.

In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy poem Inferno, Dante says that he saw Reginaldo in the inner ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, where the violent are eternally punished. The inner ring of the Seventh Circle is a burning hot desert with a continual rain of fire. The usurers are to be found sitting on the sand, swatting away fire like animals swat bugs, and crying. Around their necks are found purses emblazoned with their coats of arms. This, and a bit of research into Dante's time-period, make it possible to identify who the suffering sinners are meant to be.

Usurers are considered violent because, as Dante's Virgil explains in Canto XI, usurers sin against Art, and Art is the Grandchild of God.

Eimerl, Sarel (1967). The World of Giotto. New York: Time Inc. p. 109. 

Ciardi, John; Dante Alighieri (1954). The Inferno (Translators Notes). London, England: New American Library. pp. 154–155. 

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