Forese: Terrace 6, Purgatorio 23-24   Forese was a childhood friend of Dante in Florence and a relative of Dante's wife (Gemma Donati). He died in 1296. In their youth Forese and Dante exchanged a series of sonnets (a literary genre known as tenzone), in which they honed their poetic craft by playfully and cleverly insulting one another in the basest terms. Dante, for instance, not so subtly hints at Forese's dissolute ways and his inability to "satisfy" his wife, while Forese implicates Dante's father (and Dante himself) in shady financial dealings. Dante now encounters Forese on the terrace of gluttony, where the emaciated spirits (their eyes sunk so far back into their sockets the face resembles the letter M) suffer excruciating hunger and thirst. In the purgatorial spirit of repentance, Forese (along with Dante) looks back on his wild past with sorrow, and he credits the prayers of his good wife Nella for enabling him to advance so far up the mountain in a relatively short time (less than 5 years since his death).