Argenti was a prominent member of the Black Guelphs political faction that had exiled Dante from Florence in 1302. Dante depicts him in The Divine Comedy as a wrathful spirit condemned to eternal torture in the Greek underworld’s River Styx. Dante waxes poetic about the sadistic glee he’s taken in Argenti’s damnation while depicting his grisly fate in lurid detail. Nicholas III mistakes Dante for Pope Boniface VIII, Nicholas III’s successor, who was associated with the Black Guelphs. The novel was intended to be primarily about bullfighting, but Lady Duff’s appearance in Hemingway’s social circle eventually took center stage in the novel.