“Pride, envy , avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men ” - Dante When Virgil takes Dante to Purgatory in Canto XIII he sees people wearing coats that look like grey and bruised flesh, their eyes are sewn up with iron wires in a terrace where the blind leads the blind as they stretch out towards any good angel and fragment of love they can find. Here Dante also meet Sapia, a noblewoman purged for taking greater joy in others misfortunes than her own fortune. Invidia or envy is about feeling sadness for another man’s good fortune, it is the negation of charitas (charity), an absence of love... Invidia is also integral to the mystical powers of those who possess the evil eye. Naturally, some possess the ‘evil eye’ because of an overflowing of an inherent power undirected – but care should be observed so this most negative effect is not taking hold. A person possessing the ‘evil eye’ and who is suffering from the affliction of invidia will ...