The theme of the circles of hell was already developed by artists, composers, and directors of the 20th century. Many video game lovers know that there is a game called "Dante: Inferno". And in 2010, a fantasy cartoon based on the book by D. Alighieri was even published.
9 Circles of Hell: Dante's "Divine Comedy"
The famous singer and, probably, the first science fiction writer Dante depicted the 9 circles of hell in the Divine Comedy as a huge funnel. The more serious the sin, the more people suffered from a sinful person, the deeper into the funnel of the earthly underworld King Minos will lower him, meeting the deceased on the 2nd circle. The poet Dante described the 9 circles of hell as a place where on each "floor" the souls of the dead are serving a penal servitude. The poem was written in the dark ages, when the human mind was fettered by the fear of purgatory.
Dante worked on the poem for a long time - from 1307 to 1321. That is, the poem has glorified the name of this man for more than 700 years. For literature, this is an excellent example of medieval poetry. The whole poem is written in tertsy, with a stylistic charm unprecedented for those times.
The poet describes all these circles of hell as very gloomy and cruel, as a person who lived in the era of Catholic despotism could only imagine. For a general idea, we will describe all 9 circles, as they are depicted in the original source - the poem "The Divine Comedy".
Description of the first 5 circles of hell
In limbo (circle 1), Dante "settled" poets and scientists of antiquity who were not baptized. So, in fact, their souls do not belong to either the lower world or the higher one. In this place, the human soul experiences grief, but bodily torment, writes Dante, is not here.
On the 2nd circle, the souls are already suffering. They are tormented by gusts of wind. As on earth they were restless and sought comfort in voluptuousness, and not in the spiritual world, so here they will forever be tormented by an unprecedented storm.
The next circle is the afterlife of gluttons and gourmets. They are doomed to rot in the incessant and vile rain. Next comes greed. This sin is punished by the fact that the soul of the miser is obliged to drag weights on his back forever and fight with other souls who are dragging the same bales towards him.
The last circle of less serious sins associated with intemperance and craving for material things is a circle for the souls of angry, lazy or discouraged people.
Circles of hell for the most terrible torments
The most terrible sins, according to the writer, are violence, deception, extravagance, hypocrisy and betrayal. Circle 6 is for false teachers who have turned human minds into lies for their own benefit. In all the "spaces" of the 7th tier, rapists are suffering. And circles 8 and 9 are for the most "refined" hypocrites, heretics, panders and seducers. As well as trading priests and alchemists. It is these sins that Dante condemns, and for such souls the eternal penal servitude in the 9th circle is the most terrible.
On the very last circle, in the center, there is a fallen angel frozen into the lake with the ancient name Cocytus. In his teeth, such historical figures as Judas, as well as those who betrayed Caesar, Mark Brutus and Gaius Cassius, are doomed to be tortured.
Truly terrifying and unusual describes Dante Alighieri 9 circles of hell.
Who inspired Dante?
Like every writer, Dante had his own muse. A girl named Bice (the name Beatrice was later given to her by a genius himself) inspired a talented young man only by her existence. He was so selflessly and for a long time devoted by all his thoughts to only one lady of the heart that the greatest work, like his other poetry, was written in her honor.
Many masters of the brush depicted this girl with the poet. The artist Holiday Henry painted the painting "Dante and Beatrice" (year of writing - 1883).
Alessandro Botticelli is one of the greatest Italian painters. Most people remember him as a representative who became famous for his bright canvases depicting young men and women of heavenly beauty. However, he also had gloomy paintings on religious themes. He was interested in the most terrible story in Christian theology - Hell. Botticelli, whose painting on this subject is currently in the Vatican Library of Rome, completed its writing in 1480.
Its full name is "Abyss of Hell". It was created by the artist as an illustration for the "Divine Comedy" of his great compatriot.
"Hell" Botticelli - painting-illustration to Dante
Which gives us a lot of information about the biography of various artists, writes about the period in which the painter began to get involved in similar topics, the following. Alessandro became very famous for his work, and was invited by the Pope to Rome. There he earned a lot of money, but having a habit of a cheerful and carefree life, he spent almost all of it and was forced to return home. In this regard, the artist was filled with thoughtfulness and began to get involved in reading Dante. He made several drawings illustrating the latter's great work, The Divine Comedy.
At this time, he did not work for money, and thus became even more impoverished. "Hell" Botticelli illustrated along with other parts of this work - "Paradise" and "Purgatory". Approximately so it is possible to characterize the history of the creation of this picture.
Botticelli's painting "Hell" - a kind of "map of the area"
It is known that the artist is the author of several paintings based on the famous work of a severe Florentine. However, it is this colored drawing on parchment that is known more than others, because it is a kind of “hell map”. After all, Dante in his book described not only the sins and terrible torments to which those who committed them were condemned. He created a kind of topography of Hell. According to the poet, the underworld consists of eight circles, and the underground river Acheron flows along the perimeter of the first of them. Streams flow from it, falling into the fifth circle - the swamps of Stygia, where angry people are punished. Then it turns into the bloody river Phlegeton, and in the ninth circle - with the traitors - it falls like a waterfall into the center of the earth and freezes. This icy abyss is called Cocytus. This is what Hell looks like. Botticelli, whose picture is actually a map of Dante's underworld, is trying to follow the poet's word exactly.
The circles of Hell described by the Florentine visionary are shrinking. Therefore, his underworld is a kind of funnel, placed on the tip. It rests on the center of the earth, where Lucifer is imprisoned. As the author says, the deeper hell, the narrower the circle, the more terrible the created sin. The most terrible criminals, according to Dante, are traitors. The artist depicts in some detail and carefully all the places listed by the poet where sinners languish and suffer. Other drawings, like the iconography of earlier times, show how Virgil and
Contemporary art and the work of the artist
Interestingly, this map, created by the painter, became very popular in the twentieth century. For example, the famous novelist Dan Brown, author of the acclaimed The Da Vinci Code, wrote another bestseller - Inferno (Hell). Botticelli, whose picture appears in this book as a kind of cipher, is made with the light hand of the author, a prophet. Like, in his "map" there is a way to "implement" a certain modified version of the underworld here and now. However, this novel, despite all its fantasticness, made many Brown admirers carefully examine the drawing of the great Botticelli.
gjanna wrote a book review
Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy
Well, there is enmity all around, cruel executions, plague and other charms of the Middle Ages, so Dante's harsh hell, apparently, could be seen by any inhabitant of Florence, Naples or, for example, Bremen. Speaking of "see you". Surely you heard that Dante's contemporaries said: "The great poet must have seen hell with his own eyes, since he described it very vividly in all its details." Believe me, hell really breathes on the reader either with flames, or with ice, or with boiling ... er ... various liquids. Sinners cover their faces with their feet; they cry, and their tears flow down between the buttocks, because the anatomy was a little damaged from being in this glorious place; harlots, boiling in excrement, tear themselves to blood, apparently so that life does not seem like raspberries to them. You won't be bored while reading "Hell" for sure. Dante's contemporaries drew maps of his hell, interpreted his poems. By the way, in the walks of Alighieri and Virgil, who acts as a guide, sinners periodically meet, pouring predictions. I don’t know if they came true, since they are very closely tied to Dante’s contemporaries, whom, to be honest, I haven’t heard anything about. If Dante thus took revenge on his enemies who expelled him from Florence, he was a cruel guy.
So AD. To leave myself such a small cheat sheet-guide, I found such a scheme on the Internet. Maybe it will come in handy for someone else...
Hell Dante
You can try to find a place for yourself, for example, I am confused and will tell you about my whereabouts when I get there.
But now the cruel and colorful hell is over, and after meeting with Lucifer, chewing Brutus and Judas, we find ourselves in Purgatory, and then in Paradise. It's a pity, but paradise is not so voluminous at all and, having read the Divine Comedy to the end, I absolutely cannot remember anything bright and pleasant. For some reason, Dante believed that:
Like the shores, revolving, the firmament of the moon
Hides and reveals relentlessly
So fate has power over Florence.
So it can't sound strange
About noble Florentines my speech,
Though their memory is vague in time.
The memory of them in time is so foggy that Filippi, Ugi, Grechi for the modern reader, for the most part, are just Italian surnames and nothing more. So most of Paradise transits from the eyes into the cosmos without lingering in consciousness. And, of course, Beatrice. The girl whom Dante loved in his youth meets him in purgatory and lifts him higher and higher, to paradise. Interestingly, Dante was married, he had children, but not a single sonnet, not a single stanza of the Divine Comedy is dedicated to his wife. Beatrice is so beautiful that her bright face overshadows the delights of paradise. Oh, this idealism, when it is already impossible to be disappointed in the subject of idealization!
The Divine Comedy has been read, and now Boccaccio sparkling with humor and inventions awaits me, who, by the way, was a contemporary of Dante and these two creators, judging by their works, are so different, corresponded despite a significant difference in age.
To the great Florentine Dante from the great Florentine Botticelli, commissioned by the wealthy Florentine Lorenzo Medici. The "Divine Comedy" of the first inspired the second to create dozens of manuscripts with the money of the third, illustrating in detail the literary masterpiece of the XIV century. Of greatest interest is 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).
Enlarging the map, 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 the reverse side of 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 his native city, 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
Tempera, board. 203 × 314 cm. 1482
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. -
Among his contemporaries, Botticelli was not perceived as a brilliant master. Yes, good artist. But that was the period when many masters who later became famous masters worked. 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
Canvas, tempera. 172.5 × 278.5 cm
Uffizi, Florence. Wikimedia Commons
Botticelli was patronized by the Medici, famous connoisseurs of art. It is believed that while the painter spent the last years of 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 charms 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.
To the great Florentine Dante from the great Florentine Botticelli, commissioned by the wealthy Florentine Lorenzo Medici. The "Divine Comedy" of the first inspired the second to create dozens of manuscripts with the money of the third, illustrating in detail the literary masterpiece of the XIV century. Of greatest interest is 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 belts 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 jaws the 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 - illustrating the Divine Comedy by Dante. 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 of them 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 the reverse side of 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 his native city, 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 a brilliant master. Yes, good artist. But that was the period when many masters who later became famous masters worked. 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 spent the last years of 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 charms 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.
