Inferno

The Horses of Saint Mark are not an original work of Venice but are in fact sculptures from antiquity that were looted from Constantinople early in their lives and moved about Europe during some of the continent’s many conflicts before returning at last to St. Mark’s Square.

Langdon remembers that the horses’ collars had been installed after their plundering to conceal the fact that the heads had been removed to facilitate their transportation to Venice from Constantinople. This fact fits Zobrist’s riddle poem.

 On the Mendacium, Sinskey views the end of the video in which Zobrist specifically calls out one individual, a lover, as having been his ultimate inspiration for Inferno.

The provost shares the codename FS-2080 with Sinskey, who explains that the code follows the naming convention of a fringe wing of Transhumanists who believe the larger movement behind the philosophy isn’t moving fast enough and must be accelerated by extreme means. The naming convention itself includes the first and middle initial of a person’s birth name, and the provost reveals that he knows the true name of FS-2080.

Langdon, Sienna, and Dr. Ferris enter St. Mark’s Basilica and meet with Ettore Vio, its curator and an old friend of Langdon’s. Sienna attempts to silently get Langdon’s attention and warn him about Ferris but to no avail. Ettore works through Zobrist’s clues with Langdon, and the pair deduce that the doge mentioned in the riddle poem is Enrico Dandolo, who lived a long life, used state funds to sack Constantinople (when he’d been originally commissioned to take Alexandria), transported the Horses back to Venice, and “rescued” the bones of St. Lucia.

Just as they make this discovery, they spot Brüder’s soldiers arriving outside, and Ferris collapses in an apparent heart attack.

Sienna opens Dr. Ferris’s shirt to reveal the massive black spot, which she immediately identifies as internal bleeding and pulls Langdon away, promising him that Ferris is not actually having a heart attack.

Fleeing Brüder and the soldiers, the pair escape into the crypt beneath the Basilica, where a labyrinth of support pillars hold the Basilica above the waters beneath Venice. They eventually stumble upon the tomb of St. Mark, and Langdon is startled by the tomb’s engraving reading, in Latin, Sanctus Marcus. He realizes that—having conquered Constantinople and thus won acclaim with the Catholic church—Enrico Dandolo’s tomb would not have been inscribed with his Italian name, but his Latin one, Henrico Dandolo. Langdon suddenly realizes they are in the wrong country.

A Romani merchantwoman in St. Mark’s Square hears a commotion beneath the grated “light wells” connecting the Square to the crypts beneath and sees Sienna and Langdon attempting to climb out. With some persuasion, she helps them by lifting the upper grate off the light well.

Langdon is able to lift Sienna through, but he is captured by Brüder’s men and yells for Sienna to escape. The Romani woman hears Sienna whisper “I’m so sorry, Robert…for everything,” before running away (337).

Langdon is incapacitated by Brüder and wakes up on the Mendacium. He is then reacquainted with Dr. Sinskey, who fills in some of the gaps in his memory, but he hesitates to trust her—partially because of Brüder’s rough treatment.

The provost enters at the end of their conversation and offers to show Langdon something that will convince him they are all on the same side.

The provost leads Langdon belowdecks and mentions the Mendacium’s name, which Langdon realizes is the Latin word for Pseudologos, the Greek god of deception.

Langdon is shown Zobrist’s video and is told the mysterious underwater balloon is made of Solublon, a water-soluble plastic that can be manufactured to dissolve over predetermined periods of time, thus creating an underwater time bomb. They ask Langdon if he knows where it is, and he grimly admits that the location is over 1,000 miles away.

As they leave the Venice port, Langdon overhears Brüder’s team authorizing the use of force to capture Sienna. When he protests, the provost explains that he has a confession to make about Sienna.

On the run, Sienna reflects on her life. Her early identification as a child genius and a pariah instigated a severe depression. To help her depression, her psychiatrist suggested she focus her energy on helping others rather than worrying about her own differences. She eventually drops her first name, Felicity, as she feels detached from its meaning, “fortunate,” and takes up her middle name Sienna instead. Considering Sinskey’s description of Transhumanist naming conventions, this confirms to the reader that Sienna, not Dr. Ferris, is FS-2080.

Sienna’s care for others became an obsession, culminating in a trip to Manila with a charitable organization. Once there, she was so overwhelmed by the overcrowding and poverty in the streets that she suffers a panic attack and becomes lost. She is captured and nearly suffers a sexual assault by a group of men but is saved at the last moment by the actions of an old woman. After this traumatic experience, Sienna relapsed into her depression, lost her hair to stress-related alopecia, and took up self-defense as a coping mechanism.

It is at this point in her life she discovers and meets Dr. Bertrand Zobrist in Chicago and falls in love with him.

The provost explains to Langdon the function of the Consortium and their efforts to conceal Zobrist for the last year. The provost believed Zobrist to be on his deathbed suffering from some terminal disease and attempting to complete his masterwork before his death. His whereabouts were discovered two weeks ago when facial recognition software identified him opening a safety deposit box in Florence. When the WHO, led by Sinskey, came to find Zobrist, Sienna tailed them and Zobrist to the Badia tower, where she watched him die.

When Langdon was brought in by Sinskey, Vayentha was tasked with following him and finding out what the WHO already knew, but Vayentha lost him at the airport. She later picked up his trail with Busoni, but she was spotted, and Langdon and Busoni went in separate directions to throw her off.

Langdon worries that Sienna knows enough of the riddle poem’s answers to know she must travel to Enrico Dandolo’s tomb and worries she will prove resourceful enough to beat them to it. Langdon and the others are brought to the WHO’s C-130 plane outside Venice, which will take them to their destination. He again brings up his being shot and his memory loss, and Dr. Sinskey promises to explain the full truth of his health situation en route.