# Cacciaguida — The Divine Comedy character guide

> Cacciaguida in The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** ↩ Cacciaguida

**First appearance:** 0086-canto-xv

## Snapshot

Dante's great-great-grandfather, a crusader martyred under Emperor Conrad, who greets the poet in the Heaven of Mars and foretells his exile.

## Who they are

Cacciaguida is the one ancestor Dante meets face to face, a knight of the old Florence who speaks in a dialect already archaic and boasts of a city still pure. He answers Dante's questions about his lineage and the decline of Florence with a nostalgia that is also a judgment, and he charges the poet with the hard task of telling the whole truth about what he has seen. His prophecy of Dante's exile and his command to write give the poem its moral spine.

## In the story

### [Canto XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se/chapters/canto-xv)

Dante's great-grandfather, a blessed spirit in the sphere of Mars, who recounts the virtuous past of Florence and his own martyrdom.

### [Canto XVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se/chapters/canto-xvi)

Cacciaguida, Dante's great-great-grandfather, appears as a light in Heaven and delivers a discourse on the noble families of old Florence and the city's moral decline.

### [Canto XVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se/chapters/canto-xvii)

Cacciaguida prophesies Dante's banishment, describes the bitterness of exile, and advises him to rely on the Lombard lord.

### [Canto XX: The Righteous Kings and the Mystery of Grace](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se/chapters/canto-xx)

Not directly named in this canto, but the Eagle's discourse continues the theme of just rulers; Cacciaguida is Dante's ancestor who appears later.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se/characters/cacciaguida
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_divine_comedy_se/characters