Table of contents:

Robert Langdon

 

Robert Langdon, a professor of symbology and art at Harvard, serves as the protagonist and hero of the novel. Elizabeth Sinskey contacts him seeking his assistance in deciphering an unusual version of the Map of Hell. She urges him to travel to Florence, Italy, with her in order to prevent a crisis.

Upon arriving in Florence, Langdon is kidnapped by operatives who make him believe he has been shot and narrowly escaped death. They administer medication to erase his memories of agreeing to collaborate with Sinskey.

Thanks to Langdon’s extensive knowledge of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, he is able to unravel the clues that lead to Zobrist’s creation. However, he struggles to recollect the missing moments from his memory as he attempts to solve the mystery.

It is only when Langdon is captured by members of the SRS team and finally speaks with Sinskey that he discovers how the provost’s men wiped his memory and orchestrated an illusion to make him believe he was in danger from those associated with the WHO.

In addition to uncovering the truth about his presence in Florence, Langdon also learns that Sienna, the woman he initially worked with to solve Zobrist’s puzzles, was actually Zobrist’s lover.

Believing that Sienna intended to unleash the virus rather than contain it, Langdon pursues her when she flees from the cistern just before Bruder discovers that the virus has already been released.

Langdon manages to convince Sienna to confess that she had no intention of spreading the virus. On the contrary, she aimed to stop it because she knew Zobrist had designed a virus that would render a portion of the population infertile. Langdon arranges for Sienna to assist Sinskey in informing other members of the WHO about the virus, its mechanism, and why they should refrain from trying to counteract it.

(Click here for Robert Langdon’s detailed biography.)

 

 

Dr. Sienna Brooks

Her full name is Felicity Sienna Brooks. She works as a doctor in the Nuovo Ospedale Di San Giovanni In Dio in Florence, where she treated Robert Langdon’s injuries when he was admitted. She looks after Robert Langdon. However, she is the novel’s principal secret enemy. Sienna was a transhumanist and Zobrist’s lover. She was a strong supporter of Zobrist’s plan to reduce global population by spreading the virus.

She was described as tall and slim, with the assertive gait  of an athlete. Even in her shapeless scrubs, she exuded a willowy elegance. Despite absence of makeup, her skin was extraordinarily smooth, with the only blemish a tiny beauty mark just above her lips. Her eyes were a soft brown. Her hair was blonde and shoulder-length, and she always wore it in a thick ponytail, which was later found to be a wig. Her baldness is tied to her childhood trauma and the stress of never feeling like she belonged anywhere.

Sienna had a troubled past, which becomes clear as the story progresses. Her personality is complex, and she bears emotional weights that influence her behaviours and intentions. Despite her problematic past, Sienna exhibits tenacity, persistence, and an unflinching dedication to uncovering the truth.

Her birthplace is England, but she is currently in Italy on a fake work permit. She has always felt unusual and began reading at a young age. She had diagnosed herself with major depression when she was seven years old. Her parents sent her to a psychiatrist, who convinced her that rather of worrying about herself, she should care for others and assist those in need. As a result, she joined a humanitarian trip to the Philippines, where she witnessed the overcrowding of Manilla, the world’s most densely populated city. For every individual she helped, there were hundreds more who were hungry. She witnessed poverty, traffic congestion, pollution, child sex trafficking, and many other things that taught her that when people are desperate, they act like animals. She is almost raped when three men attack her, but she is saved by a deaf, old woman wielding a knife. She leaves without saying goodbye to the other members of the group.

She has worked for The Provost for a few years and benefits from her language skills and intelligence. Because of stress, she begins to lose her hair and eventually needs to shave it all off and replace it with a wig. She comes upon Bertrand Zobrist’s articles and becomes an admirer. She notifies The Provost that she no longer wants to work and instead wants to save the world. Bertrand Zobrist is taken to The Provost and becomes a client. At the same time, she changes her name to FS 2080, after Fereidoun M. Esfandiary’s code. She met Bertrand Zobrist six years previously in Chicago while attending a Zobrist lecture. After that, Zobrist invited her to his room for a drink, and they started a relationship. Sienna falls in love with and becomes Zobrist’s disciple. She is standing in the square when Zobrist commits suicide from the Badia Tower.

 

 

Dr. Bertrand Zobrist

Dr. Bertrand Zobrist is a Swiss billionaire and genetic engineer. He does not appear physically in the narrative because his suicide occurs prior to the events of the novel. He appears only in flashbacks of other characters.

Zobrist is a transhumanist and a rationalist. He wrote numerous articles regarding the world’s overpopulation, which he believed would eventually become a major disaster for the human race’s future. He attempted to explain to WHO Director Dr. Sinskey, why he needed to build a biohazard that would perhaps fix the situation and save the world from the apocalypse. Sinskey called ECDC units to stop Zobrist after realizing he was becoming a bioterrorist. Knowing how badly Zobrist wanted his project to succeed, Sienna introduced him to the Consortium, the organization she worked for that could do anything for him. The Consortium provided him with bogus passports, hidden locations, and a laboratory facility. Zobrist intended to hide the virus in an Istanbul city cistern in a biodegradable plastic bag. He intends to finance a week-long concert in the cistern to ensure that the epidemic reaches a large number of people.

An ECDC squad chased him up to the top of the Badia Fiorentina one day. Zobrist committed suicide by jumping to his death, only after wishing that the world would remember him as a hero rather than a monster.

 

 

Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey

For the past ten years, Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey has served as Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dr. Sinskey has been regarded as gorgeous, majestic, and powerful. She had a severely set jaw, deep sad eyes, and long, silver-gray hair in ringlets that cascaded over her shoulders. She first appears in Langdon’s hallucinations at the beginning of the novel as a silver-haired woman wearing a veil and asking him to “seek and find.”

Elizabeth was advised at the age of nineteen that she couldn’t have children because of steroid hormones she had received when she was six to save her life from ashtma. She grew up with the hollowness, rage, and despair of never being able to be a mother, despite the doctor’s assurances that time would heal all wounds. Even at 61, she felt empty whenever she watched a mother with her baby.

Sinskey was the one that approached Langdon about assisting her with the Zobrist’s disease. However, the Provost abducted Robert and erased his memories. When Langdon observed the SRS men injecting Sinskey, he assumed she had been kidnapped. It was then found that the shots were given to her to help her deal with vertigo issues.

Elizabeth led a team of ECDC soldiers to Langdon, who was accompanied by Sienna Brooks. As they escaped Florence, she was contacted by the provost of the Consortium, and they banded together to halt Zobrist’s epidemic. They uncovered Langdon’s whereabouts through one of the Consortium’s employees, and the WHO sent people after them, capturing Langdon but escaping Sienna. Langdon then informs her that the virus was not discovered in Venice, but rather in Istanbul, Turkey. Sinskey and Langdon travel there to find the infection.

 

Vayentha

Vayentha was the female contract killer who works for the Consortium. She attacked Langdon and Sienna Brooks in the Florence Hospital in Inferno. She is hunting Robert Langdon throughout Florence, apparently to kill him, but she is not shooting with real bullets. Her task is to get the object that Langdon possesses. She tries to get hold of it at Nuovo Ospedale Di San Giovanni In Dio, in Sienna´s apartment, and in Palazzo Vecchio, where she falls through the roof off the Hall of the Five Hundred. She was killed when she fell through the ceiling in the Hall of Five Hundred.

 

Ignazio Busoni

Ignazio Busoni was the director of Museo dell’Opera del Duomo and thus he supervised Il Duomo, Florence’s most caracteristic monument. All Florence called him by his nickname Il Duomino, the little dome in Italian, which was a reference to Il Duomo (the most famous cathedral of the city), and the fact that the man had a red face and weighed nearly four hundred pounds. He was a great fan of spaghetti Bolognese and caramel budino.

Before the beginning of Inferno, Robert Langdon scheduled a meeting with Ignazio Busoni to enter the Palazzo Vecchio after hours and took Dante Alighieri’s death mask and left quietly, but got separated just outside the museum with Ignazio holding the mask. Ignazio knew that there were people after him who wanted to steal the mask from them so he hid it at Baptistry of San Giovanni. Later that night, he died of a heart attack.

 

Jonathan Ferris

Jonathan Ferris is a Consortium agent who poses as a representative of the World Health Organisation. He pretended to be Dr. Marconi at the start of the novel, complete with artificial brows and a moustache, and then pretended to be murdered by Vayentha.

He later follows Langdon and Sienna as they flee from Palazzo Vecchio. He initially saw Robert Langdon and Sienna Brooks in Piazza della Signoria, wearing Plume Paris glasses and a golden earring and sporting a rash produced by the Italian soap. His rash intensifies and his fingernails turn bloody. He offers a $500 bribe to the docent at the Baptistery to let him in for 5 minutes. He informs Langdon and Sienna that he works for the WHO. When he, Langdon, and Sienna are on their way to Venice, he receives a phone call from the Provost. In St. Mark’s Basilica, Sienna strikes him hard in the chest, causing him to have difficulty breathing.

 

 

 

The Provost

The provost is depicted as a tiny, stunted man with tanned skin and deep-set eyes. His unimposing body and forthright demeanour appeared well suited to someone who had built a fortune delivering a private menu of covert services on society’s murky outskirts. He was the leader of Consortium and the owner of the ship, Mendacium.

The provost merely allowed his customers to follow their dreams and passions without consequence; the fact that mankind was sinful by nature was not his concern. Despite his critics’ ethical concerns, the provost’s moral compass was a fixed star. He had established his name, as well as the Consortium, on two golden rules.

Never make a promise you are unable to keep. Never, ever lie to a client. The provost had never violated a commitment or reneged on a bargain in his professional existence. His word was bankable—an absolute guarantee—and, while there were contracts he wished he hadn’t made, pulling out was never an option.

The Provost, on the other hand, did not believe in luck. Everything he did was planned to eliminate randomness and chance. Control was the provost’s specialty: predicting every eventuality, anticipating every response, and molding reality to get the intended result. He had an impeccable track record of success and secrecy, as well as a dizzying clientele of millionaires, politicians, sheikhs, and even entire nations.

He received an assignment through Sienna Brooks, who has recommended Bertrand Zobrist to get protection from World Health Organization (WHO). He tries to accomplish Zobrist’s wishes by securing the location of the virus from Langdon and Sinskey and divulging a video Zobrist made before his death to the media.

Through Vayentha, he tries to win Robert Langdon over to his side. However, since that operation is unsuccessful, the Consortium has to make it seem like somebody is hunting Langdon.

When he learns that he was helping Zobrist who is planning a bioterrorist attack, he helps the World Health Organization to find the cure despite being arrested at the end of the novel.

 

 

Marta Alvarez

Marta Alvarez is the director of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. She is depicted as an eight-month pregnant woman. She allowed Robert Langdon accompanied by Ignazio Busoni in the museum after hours. The very next day Langdon and Sienna arrive at the museum. Langdon introduces Dr. Sienna as his sister. Marta accompanies them to the museum. Suddenly it was found that the mask of Dante Alighieri was stolen. When the security cameras were checked, it was discovered that Langdon and Ignazio Busoni had stolen it from its place. However, she let Langdon and Sienna Brooks go before the police arrived after he promised to return it safely to the palace. At the end of Inferno, Marta had her first child, a baby girl who she called Catalina.

 

 

Christoph Brüder

He is the head of the SRS team (part of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) who is ordered by Sinskey to find Langdon after she lost contact with him. They have to find the dangerous virus that Bertrand Zobrist has hid in a secret place.

 

Mirsat

He is a guide of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. He is portrayed as a slight man with thinning hair, scholarly-looking glasses, and a  gray suit. He is a fan of Langdon and is very excited to see him. He was irritated when Langdon insisted on only seeing the tomb of Enrico Dandolo. After learning that Robert is looking for Zobrist’s plague, Mirsat became more cooperative, taking them to the city cistern, where they believe Zobrist hid the plague.

 

 

Ernesto Russo

He is a guard at the Pitti Palace who watches over the only secret exit from the Boboli Gardens, which is through a grey door. He is an overweight 29-year-old man who always dreamed about playing European football but now has to be satisfied with working a boring job as a guard in a place that nobody besides lost tourists ever visits. Langdon and Sienna are able to pry the code to the secret door out of him.

 

Collins

Apparently the consul general’s chief administrator at the American consulate, but is really an employee of The Provost. He receives a call from Robert Langdon and informs The Provost about his whereabouts.

 

Giorgio Venci

He is the chief designer in the shop Atelier Pietro Longhi in Venice, which sells historical costumes, wigs, and accessories. He is a member of the transhumanistic movement and helps Sienna get a private jet to Istanbul.

 

 

Ettore Vio

He is the curator at the Museum of St. Marks Basilica in Venice. He once worked with Langdon on a documentary about the Church. He helps Langdon by telling him which doge once severed the heads from the horses.

 

Laurence Knowlton

He is a senior facilitator employed by the Provost. His task is to release the movie that Zobrist had asked the company to make. He asks the Provost to watch the movie and is rejected at first. But later, when the Provost starts to doubt whether to follow the protocols of the company, he watches the movie and realizes that he has been helping a criminal.

 

Deb Kier

Employee at NetJet U.S., a private jet company. She is contacted by Jonas Faulkman, who orders a plane for Robert Langdon. When Deb Kier enters the number from Langdon´s passport, she receives an alert and calls the authorities.

 

Maurizio Pimponi

The chauffeur of a water limousine in Venice. He takes Langdon, Ferris, and Sienna from the station to St. Mark´s Square.

 

Gypsy woman

She sells masks in St. Mark´s Square and tries to sell to Langdon. She helps Sienna escape St. Mark´s crypt by holding out her arm after Sienna is propped up by Langdon.

 

Fereidoun M Esfandiary

Transhumanist who changed his name to FM 2030. FM for the initials in his name, and 2030 for the year when he would have turned 100 years old. His working goal was for man to be able to live up to 100 years. While he died of cancer at the age of 70, many have shown their sympathy for Esfandiary by copying his manner of the name change, such as FS 2080.

 

Eugenia Antonucci

She is the secretary of Ignazio Busoni who informs Robert Langdon over cell phone about the sudden death of Ignazio Busoni. She played the last recorded message of Ignazio for Langdon.

 

Jonas Faukman

Editor in the book business and good friend of Robert Langdon. When Langdon needs help, he provides Langdon with a private jet to take him from Florence to Geneva to hide his intentions of going to Venice.

 

Docent

A guard at the Baptistery in Florence. He accepts a $500 bribe and lets Jonathan Ferris into the baptistry before opening hours.

 

 

INTRODUCTION  THEMES AND MOTIFS  CURIOSITY & SUSPENSE  PLOT SUMMARY

CRITICAL OVERVIEW   CLIFFHANGERS IN NOVEL

DESCRIPTIONS OF OBJECTS, PLACES, ORGANIZATIONS & PROCESSES  MOVIE ADAPTATION