Reading Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, a poem rich in references to 14th-century Florentine politics and medieval Catholic theology, can seem like a daunting task. Much depends on the translation and, of course, on the illustrations, maps and diagrams. They give the text figurative materiality, helping the reader to follow the bright events of the poem, as the heroes go through nine circles of hell, meeting its doomed inhabitants on each, up to Lucifer frozen into ice, gnawing Judas, Brutus and Cassius with three jaws.
"Divine Comedy", becoming one of the greatest literary works, spawned a craze for "hellish cartography". The desire to depict the "Hell" described by Dante spread against the backdrop of the popularity of cartography and the obsession of the Renaissance with proportions and measurements.
Calculations by Antonio Manetti, 1529.
The craze for mapping Hell began with Antonio Manetti, a 15th-century Florentine architect and mathematician. He diligently worked on "place, shape and size", for example, estimating the width of Limbo at about 141 kilometers.
Illustration by Antonio Manetti.
Illustration by Antonio Manetti.
However, in the scientific community there were disputes about mapping the fictional world. Thinkers asked questions: What is the circumference of Hell? How deep is it? Where is the entrance? Even Galileo Galilei got involved in the discussions. In 1588, he gave two lectures in which he examined the dimensions of Hell and eventually supported Manetti's version of Hell's topography.
Map of Hell by Botticelli.
One of the first maps of Dante's "Hell" appeared in a series of ninety illustrations by Sandro Botticelli, a compatriot of the poet and creator High Renaissance, who created his drawings in the 1480-90s by order of another famous Florentine - Lorenzo de Medici. Deborah Parker, professor Italian at the University of Virginia, writes: "Botticelli's Hell Map has long been rated as one of the most compelling visual representations... the descent made by Dante and Virgil through the "terrible valley of pain"".
Map of Hell by Michelangelo Caetani, 1855.
Dante's Hell has been visualized countless times, from purely schematic representations, as in Michelangelo Caetani's 1855 diagram, where there is little detail but a clear systematic use of color, to rich illustrative maps, as in Jacques Callot's 1612 version.
Illustrative version of the Hell map by Jacques Callot, 1612.
Even after hundreds of years cultural change and turmoil "Hell" and its horrific scenes of torture continue to arouse the interest of readers and illustrators. For example, below is Daniel Heald's version. His 1994 map lacks Botticelli's gilded sheen, but is another clear visual guide through the poet's afterlife.
Daniel Heald, 1994
Lindsay McCulloch, 2000
Map of Hell from a book published by Aldus Manutius at the end of the 15th century.
Map of Hell by Giovanni Stradano (Stradanus), 1587.
The first circle of Hell is Limbo, where the souls of those who were not caught in unrighteous deeds, but died unbaptized, reside. Live in Limbo ancient philosophers and poets (besides Virgil), there were also Noah, Moses and Abraham - all the righteous men mentioned in the Old Testament - but then they were allowed to ascend to Paradise.
Guardian: Charon.
Punishment: sorrow without pain.
2 circle - Voluptuousness
At the entrance, travelers are met by King Minos (a fair judge and father of the Minotaur), who distributes the souls in circles. Here everything is covered with darkness and a storm is constantly raging - gusts of wind throw the souls of those who were pushed onto the path of sin by love. He desired someone else's wife or husband, lived in debauchery - your soul will rush restless over the abyss forever.
Guardian: Minos.
Punishment: torsion and torment by a storm.
3 circle - Gluttony
Gluttons are imprisoned in this circle: freezing rain always pours here, souls get stuck in a dirty slurry, and the demon Cerberus gnaws at the prisoners who have fallen under the clawed paw.
Guardian: Cerberus.
Punishment: rotting in the sun and rain.
4 circle - Greed
The abode of those who "unworthily spent and saved", a gigantic plain on which two crowds stand. Pushing loads with their chests, they go towards each other, collide and then part to start over.
Guardian: Plutus.
Punishment: eternal dispute.
5 circle - Anger and Laziness
A giant river, or rather the Stygian swamp, where they are exiled for laziness and anger. All circles up to the 5th are the haven of the intemperate, and intemperance is considered a lesser sin than "malice or violent bestiality", and therefore the suffering of souls there is eased compared to those who live in the outer circles.
Guardian: Phlegius.
Punishment: an eternal fight up to the throat in a swamp.
6 circle - For heretics and false teachers
The flaming city of Dit (the Romans called Dit Hades, the god underworld), which is guarded by the sisters of the Furies with tangles of snakes instead of hair. Inescapable sorrow reigns here, and heretics and false teachers rest in the open tombs, as if in eternal furnaces. The transition to the 7th circle is protected by a fetid abyss.
Guardians: Furies.
Punishment: be a ghost in a fiery grave.
7 circle - For rapists and murderers of all stripes
Steppes, where the fiery rain is always falling and the same thing appears to the eye: the terrible torment of souls stained with violence. This includes tyrants, and murderers, and suicides, and blasphemers, and even players (who thoughtlessly destroyed their own property). Sinners are torn apart by dogs, hunted by harpies, boiled in scarlet boiling water, turned into trees and forced to run under jets of flame.
Guardian: Minotaur.
Punishment: boil in bloody river languish in the sultry desert by the burning stream, be tormented by harpies and hounds.
8 circle - For those who deceived those who did not trust
The haven of pimps and seducers consists of 10 ditches (Slobozukha, Evil Slits), in the center of which lies the most terrible - the 9th - circle of Hell. Soothsayers, soothsayers, sorceresses, bribe takers, hypocrites, flatterers, thieves, alchemists, false witnesses and counterfeiters are tormented nearby. The same circle includes priests who traded in church positions.
Guardian: Gerion.
Punishment: sinners walk in two oncoming streams, scourged by demons, stuck in foul-smelling feces, some bodies are chained in rocks, fire flows down their feet. Someone boils in tar, and if he sticks his head out, the devils pierce the gaffs. Those chained in lead robes are placed on a red-hot brazier, sinners are gutted and tormented by reptiles, leprosy and lichen.
9 circle - For apostates and traitors of all sorts
"Map of Hell" by Botticelli (the story of one masterpiece)
To the great Florentine Dante from the great Florentine Botticelli, commissioned by a wealthy Florentine Lorenzo Medici. The "Divine Comedy" of the first inspired the second to create dozens of manuscripts with the money of the third, in the most detailed way illustrating a literary masterpiece of the XIV century. Most Interest causes a kind of infographic of Hell - a map, following which the heroes of the "Divine Comedy" can be seen in detail the torment to which sinners are subjected. The sight is not for the faint of heart.
Plot
Botticelli depicted Hell as a funnel. Unbaptized infants and virtuous non-Christians in limbo are given over to painless grief; voluptuaries who have fallen into the second circle for lust endure torment and torment by a hurricane; the gluttons in the third circle rot in the rain and hail; misers and spendthrifts drag weights from place to place in the fourth round; the angry and lazy always fight in the swamps of the fifth circle; heretics and false prophets lie in fiery graves on the sixth; all kinds of rapists, depending on the object of abuse, are tormented in different zones of the seventh circle - they boil in a ditch of red-hot blood, are tormented by harpies, or languish in the desert under a fiery rain; deceivers of those who do not trust languish in the crevices of the eighth circle: some are stuck in fetid feces, some boil in tar, some are chained, some are tormented by reptiles, some are gutted; and the ninth circle is prepared for those who deceived. Among the latter is Lucifer frozen into the ice, who torments in his three mouths traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Mark Junius Brutus and Cassius - the traitors of Jesus and Caesar, respectively).
Here you can see in detail the torment of sinners. The emotions and feelings of each of the characters are written out in detail.
The map of Hell was part of a large commission to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy. The exact dates of the creation of the manuscripts are unknown. Researchers agree that Botticelli began work on them in the mid-1480s and, with some interruptions, was occupied with them until the death of the customer, Lorenzo the Magnificent Medici.
Not all pages have survived. Presumably, there should be about 100 of them, 92 manuscripts have come down to us, of which four are fully colored. Several pages of text or numbers are blank, suggesting that Botticelli did not complete the work. Most are sketches. At that time, paper was expensive, and the artist could not just take and throw away a sheet with a failed sketch. Therefore, Botticelli first worked with a silver needle, squeezing out a drawing. Some manuscripts show how the idea changed: from the composition as a whole to the position of individual figures. Only when the artist was satisfied with the sketch did he outline the outlines in ink.
On reverse side For each illustration, Botticelli indicated the text of Dante, which explained the drawing.
Context
The Divine Comedy is a kind of Dante's response to the events of his own life. Having failed in the political struggle in Florence and being expelled from hometown, he devoted himself to enlightenment and self-education, including the study of ancient authors. It is no coincidence that Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, is the guide in the Divine Comedy.
The dark forest in which the hero got lost is a metaphor for the poet's sins and searches. Virgil (mind) saves the hero (Dante) from terrible beasts (mortal sins) and leads him through Hell to Purgatory, after which Beatrice (divine grace) gives way on the threshold of paradise.
The fate of the artist
Botticelli was from a family of jewelers and had to deal in gold and other precious metals. However, the boy liked to make sketches and draw much more. Plunging into the world of fantasy, Sandro forgot about his surroundings. He turned life into art, and art became life for him.
"Spring" Botticelli, 1482
Among his contemporaries, Botticelli was not perceived as master of genius. Yes, good artist. But that was the period when many created, who later became famous masters. For the 15th century, Sandro Botticelli was a reliable master who could be entrusted with painting frescoes or illustrating books, but by no means a genius.
"Birth of Venus" Botticelli, 1484−1486
Botticelli was patronized by the Medici, famous connoisseurs of art. It is believed that while the painter last years spent his life almost in poverty. however, there is evidence that Botticelli was not as poor as he wanted to appear. However, he did not have his own home or family. The very idea of marriage frightened him.
After meeting the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who in his sermons convincingly called for repentance and abandoning the delights of earthly life, Botticelli completely fell into asceticism. The artist died at the age of 66 in Florence, where his ashes still rest today in the cemetery of the Church of All Saints.
Abyss of Hell - Sandro Botticelli. 1480. Parchment and colored pencils. 32 x 47 cm
Sandro Botticelli is presented to modern viewers as an artist whose main motives for his works were beauty, optimism, and a life-affirming beginning. However, this is not entirely true. Botticelli was a rather mysterious and very religious person, suffice it to mention that he was fond of the gloomy sermons of Savonarola, and the execution of this reformer monk had a huge impact on the painter. Art historians know that in the work of Botticelli one can also find quite tragic, pessimistic works, one of which is a painting, or rather a drawing, “Abyss of Hell”, also called “Circles of Hell”, “Map of Hell” or succinctly “Hell”.
In 1480, Lorenzo de' Medici commissioned an illustrated manuscript with the text of Dante's popular Divine Comedy. The illustrative part was entrusted to Sandro Botticelli, and although the painter did not finish this work, even in this form it looks more than impressive. Of all the drawings, "Abyss of Hell" is the most ambitious illustration.
Dante imagined hell as a kind of cyclic form, where the whole kingdom is divided into nine circles, which, in turn, are divided into rings. Botticelli very accurately approached the text of the poem, depicting not only all the rings and circles, but also individual stops that, according to the plot of the Divine Comedy, Dante and his guide Virgil made on the way to the center of the earth.
The farther the circle, the more terrible and painful the sin. We see how every sinner suffers after death for his earthly deeds. Botticelli depicts hell as a funnel, narrowing towards the center of the earth, where Lucifer lives in prison.
1 circle - these are unbaptized babies and the Old Testament righteous, whose punishment is painless sorrow. In the 2nd circle there are voluptuaries who are tortured by a hurricane and blows against rocks. The 3rd circle is the abode of gluttons rotting in the rain, and the 4th is the miserly and embezzlers who drag weight from place to place and, colliding, have fierce disputes. In the 5th circle are the souls of the discouraged and angry, their punishment is a fight in a swamp with a bottom of the souls of the discouraged. The 6th circle met Dante with false teachers and heretics lying in red-hot graves. In the 7th circle - rapists, the 8th circle - these are the deceived and deceivers located in the cracks. And, finally, the 9th circle is a receptacle for souls who have committed the most terrible sin - betrayal. They are forever frozen in the ice up to their necks with their faces turned down.
To understand the scale and scrupulousness of Botticelli's work, the drawing should be considered very carefully, and when studying reproductions, you will have to resort to the help of a magnifying glass - and then, Dante's entire narrative will unfold before the viewer with all the accuracy and power of a poetic word.
Botticelli's drawings illustrating the Songs of Hell from Dante's Divine Comedy, filled with small, darting figures of sinners, are full of an alarming confusion of lines; some of them, where the motif of a grand staircase-arch, connecting the circles of hell, is repeated, there is a genuine severe grandeur.
The color sheets for the Tenth and Eighteenth Cantos give an idea of how Botticelli intended the whole cycle of illustrations. Main characters- Dante and Virgil - attract attention with bright robes on a faded background.
Traveling through the sixth circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil end up in the city of Dit. There are stone tombs in which fire burns. Sinners, followers of the teachings of Epicurus, who do not believe in an afterlife, are punished there.
Everywhere you look - all the view of the old tomb, -
So there were graves everywhere,
Tormenting the dead with the bitterest punishment;
A stubborn flame lit latently,
Burned in these pits, heating them up like that,
How to heat iron would be difficult.
In open coffins and in open crayfish
Tormented breasts moaned bitterly
Outcasts - to know, pitiful was their sight *.
"Divine Comedy" Dante "Hell" Canto IX, verses 115-123.
While traveling through the eighth circle of hell, they encounter the souls of sinners, tormented by demons for various sins. The souls of deceivers, panders and seducers moving in rows are subjected to cruel scourging, the souls of hypocrites and harlots are immersed in a ditch with sewage.
Naked sinners walk in rows:
Some hurry to meet us in alarm,
And in step with us - but a wider step - others,
Like the Romans, who are many in number,
In the year of the anniversary crush, avoiding
The bridge was divided into two roads:
One column stretched, walking
In the direction of the castle, to the church of St. Peter,
And towards her, uphill, another one was walking.
Here and there in the depths of the harsh
Demons with horns brutally scourged
Sinful backs of the naked people.
"Divine Comedy" Dante "Hell" Canto XVIII, verses 25-36.
The drawing for Canto Thirty-one depicts ancient giants in rebellion against the gods. As punishment, they were chained in a gloomy well. Giants symbolize the brute force of nature.
Among them is a builder Tower of Babel King Nimrod blowing a horn hanging from his neck. Giant Elphiat, tightly entwined with five turns of chain, starting from the neck so that right hand pressed to the body from behind, and the left - in front. Antaeus, the only one free from the chains, carries Dante and Virgil to the next, ninth circle.
Illustrating the thirty-fourth, final Song of Hell, Botticelli depicts in the last circle of hell, named Giudecca, the three-headed Lucifer, with wings like bat. In the teeth of the three heads of the prince of darkness are the three greatest sinners-traitors - Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar, and Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The prince of darkness, over whom all Hell is heaped,
He lifted half his chest of ice;
And a giant, more like me,
Than in his hand (for you to count,
What is he in full growth, and the power of vision,
Appeared to us, fully comprehended).
Anciently beautiful, today is disgust itself,
He raised his arrogant gaze at his Creator -
He is the embodiment of all vices and evil!
And it was necessary to look so vile -
His head was equipped with three faces!
The first above the chest, red, savage;
And on the sides there are two, the place of their junction
Over the shoulders; a brutal look
Every face looked around wildly.
The first one seemed to be yellow and white,
And the left one is like those who lived a long time
Near the falls of the Nile, - blackened.
Under each is a pair of the broadest wings,
How befits a bird so mighty;
Goldfinches never matured with such a sail.
Without feathers, like a bat mouse;
He rotated them, and three winds, blowing,
They flew, each in a viscous stream;
From these jets, Cocytus was frozen, freezing.
Six eyes sobbed; three mouths through the lips
Saliva oozed, turning pink with blood.
And here, and here, and there teeth were tormented
By the sinner; there are only three of them,
And they endure torment.
