How does Dante utilize the depiction of characters in The Inferno to express social satire and satirical commentary?

Dante had
reasons to use social commentary--he was exiled from Florence for picking the wrong side in the
Guelph-Ghibelline conflict and for this was threatened with death if he came back to Florence.
 In The Inferno, Dante sends the people who committed various sins into
their own circle of Hell.  Each circle fits the crime.  Gluttons are left to wallow about in
waste.  Lustful people are blown about by the winds, as they cannot stay attached.  Murderers
and suicides get their own grisly punishment.  Dante sends many people who have wronged him into
Hell.  There are even popes in Hell.  Even in the lowest circle, the most treacherous people in
his view of history, Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot are being chewed by a three headed
Satan-like beast encased in ice, which is supposed to be the exact opposite of the Trinity used
in Christianity.  Dante wanted to write an epic for Florence that would be the equal of the
ancient Greek and Roman epics.  He also wanted to state to his enemies that their eternal
punishments would fit the crimes.