Demons in the Divine Comedy

250 px|thumb|Malacoda and his squadron of Malebranche threaten Virgil and Dante in the fifth Bolgia, portrayed by [[Gustave Doré.]] Malacoda is a character in Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Cantos 21-2), where he features as the leader of the Malebranche, the twelve demons who guard Bolgia Five of Malebolge, the eighth circle of Hell. The name Malacoda is roughly equivalent to "bad tail" or "evil tail" in Italian. Unlike other characters such as Geryon, which are based on mythical characters, Malacoda was invented by Dante and is not a mythological reference.

demons in the Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy