It follows from this that the worst of sins, according to the plan of Hell, is not lust or greed or even avarice but rather treachery, which is punished at the very centre of Hell. Traitors – whether to family, friends or nation – undermine the best institutions that human beings have rationally established. They are now imprisoned in ice; and this punishment is an exact indication of how, in Dante’s view, treachery wholly extinguishes the fruitful capacity for love that exists in all individuals.
