Columns of infamy

The Italians like to bear a grudge – for centuries. A column of infamy records in stone the misdeeds of a traitor or other despicable person, shaming them for all eternity. It’s a very good revenge. Now we have the revenge novel, or even revenge article – the magazine column of infamy.

But is infamy or obscurity the harsher punishment? Dante’s victims in Inferno would have been swallowed by the tide of time long ago if he had not written about them, immortalising  them as footnotes in history.