To the depths of Hell, to see the giant triple-headed Lucifer eating Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius. Then as dawn draws near, back to the world above.
van der Straet
The horrific story of a count locked away to starve to death, who turned to cannibalism. How that came to be used falsely in Lavater’s physiognomy.
First a centaur killed by Hercules, then souls being tormented by reptiles, those with fraudulent lives burning in hell, and dismembered parts of those who inflamed dissent.
Barrators, who traded in public office and bribed courts, hypocrites whose clothes are weighted with lead, and thieves who are stuck in a pit of snakes.
Visiting the ‘rottenpockets’ full of tormented souls guilty of pimping, seduction, flattery, selling church privileges, nepotism, fortune-telling, and corruption in public office.
Descending past the Minotaur of Crete, they reach a group of centaurs and travel on past famous killers, into a wood of thorn trees of those who committed suicide.
First Dante and Virgil have to negotiate the three-headed monster dog Cerberus, guarding Hell, then the stinking mud containing gluttons.
In the late 19th century painters turned attention to depicting rainy conditions, with Caillebotte’s closely observed views, and effects on colour.
The final canto of the Inferno takes Dante to see Lucifer himself, after which Virgil guides him back to the surface of earth.
Count Ugolino was a leading and treacherous politician, who could only be trusted to betray others. He was left to die in prison of starvation.
The Eclectic Light Company 