265. Another hell was subsequently opened where I saw two men. One was sitting on a bench, with his feet in a basket full of snakes, and as I looked they were slithering up over his breast to his neck. The other man was sitting on a donkey on fire, and at each side of it crept serpents that were red in color, lifting their necks and heads and following the rider.
I was told that the two had been popes who had deposed emperors from power and had treated them with vituperation and abuse when these came supplicating them and venerating them at Rome. The basket in which I saw the snakes, and the donkey on fire with the serpents on each side, were representations of their love of governing from a love of self. However, that is not how they appear to others unless they view them from a distance.
Some members of a religious order were present, and I asked them whether the men were those same popes. They said they recognized them and knew that they were.
