Map of the circles of hell. Platonic love by Sandro Botticelli
Noted only by the life-affirming motifs of “Spring”. “Venus and Mars” and “Birth of Venus”, but also with gloomy, tragic moods. A clear example of them is the drawing “Map of Hell” ( La mappa dell inferno).
There are several celebrated illustrated manuscripts of Dante's Divine Comedy. The most remarkable in this regard is the luxurious manuscript commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici with magnificent drawings by Sandro Botticelli. The series of drawings by Botticelli remained unfinished, but even in this form it can be recognized as the pinnacle of the art of book illustration of the Italian Quattrocento (15th century).
Botticelli's illustrations on the theme of Hell are especially stunning. “Map of Hell” by Sandro Botticelli - a color drawing on parchment depicting nine circles of the hellish abyss.
Sandro Botticelli. Map of Hell (Circles of Hell - La mappa dell inferno). Illustration for Dante's "Divine Comedy". 1480s
Dante described Hell as an abyss with nine circles, which in turn are divided into various rings. Botticelli, in his “Map of Hell,” presented the kingdom of sinners with such subtlety and accuracy that one can trace the individual stops that, according to the plot of the “Divine Comedy,” Dante and Virgil made as they descended to the center of the earth.
Below is another illustration by Sandro Botticelli for The Divine Comedy. This is a drawing for Song 18 of Hell. The main characters, Dante and Virgil, are depicted here several times, as if traveling along the edge of a hellish abyss. They stand out with their vibrantly shining clothes. Following through the gorges of Hell, they first see the souls of pimps and seducers tormented by demons, and then informers and prostitutes who are doomed to suffer, cast into the mud.
Sandro Botticelli. Hell. Illustration for Dante's "Divine Comedy". 1480s
Here Botticelli represents Dante and his guide Virgil in the eighth circle of Hell, which consists of ten deep abysses where swindlers are punished.
Sandro Botticelli. Dante and Virgil in the eighth circle of Hell. Illustration for Dante's "Divine Comedy". 1480s
And here Botticelli painted ancient giants who rebelled against the gods and were chained for it. They symbolize the brute force of nature trapped in the depths of hell.
Sandro Botticelli. Ancient giants in Hell. Illustration for Dante's "Divine Comedy". 1480s
The Abyss of Hell - Sandro Botticelli. 1480. Parchment and colored pencils. 32 x 47 cm
Modern viewers see Sandro Botticelli as an artist whose main motives in his works were beauty, optimism, and life-affirming principles. However, this is not entirely true. Botticelli was a rather mysterious and very religious person; it is enough to mention that he was keen on the gloomy sermons of Savonarola, and the execution of this reformer monk had a huge influence on the painter. Art critics know that in Botticelli’s work one can also find quite tragic, pessimistic works, one of which is the painting, or rather the drawing, “The Abyss of Hell”, also called “Circles of Hell”, “Map of Hell” or laconically “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, “The Abyss of Hell” is the most large-scale illustration.
Dante imagined hell as a kind of cyclical form, where the entire kingdom is divided into nine circles, which, in turn, are divided into rings. Botticelli approached the text of the poem very accurately, 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 further 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 tapering towards the center of the earth, where Lucifer lives in captivity.
The 1st circle is unbaptized infants and the Old Testament righteous, whose punishment is painless grief. In the 2nd circle there are voluptuous people who are tortured by hurricanes and blows against rocks. The 3rd circle is the abode of gluttons, rotting in the rain, and the 4th circle is stingy and embezzled, who carry heavy things from place to place and, when they collide, lead fierce disputes. In the 5th circle there are souls of the despondent and angry, their punishment is a fight in a swamp with a bottom of despondent souls. The 6th circle met Dante with false teachers and heretics lying in hot graves. In the 7th circle there are rapists, the 8th circle is the deceived and deceivers who are in the cracks. And finally, the 9th circle represents the receptacle of souls who have committed the most terrible sin - betrayal. They were forever frozen in ice up to their necks with their faces turned down.
To understand the scale and meticulousness of Botticelli’s work, the drawing should be examined very carefully, and when studying the reproduction, 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 the poetic word.
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, which helps the reader follow the bright events of the poem, as the heroes go through the nine circles of hell, meeting its doomed inhabitants at each, right down to Lucifer frozen in the ice, gnawing Judas, Brutus and Cassius with three jaws.
The Divine Comedy, having become one of the greatest works of literature, gave rise to a craze for “infernal cartography.” The desire to depict Dante's "Hell" was fueled by the popularity of cartography and the Renaissance's obsession with proportion and measurement.
Calculations by Antonio Manetti, 1529.
The fascination with mapping Hell began with Antonio Manetti, a 15th-century Florentine architect and mathematician. He worked diligently on "place, shape and size", for example estimating the width of Limbo to be approximately 141 kilometers.
Illustration by Antonio Manetti.
Illustration by Antonio Manetti.
However, disputes arose among scientists 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 explored the dimensions of Hell and eventually supported Manetti's version of the topography of Hell.
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 of the High Renaissance, who created his drawings in the 1480-90s by order of another famous Florentine - Lorenzo de' Medici. Deborah Parker, professor of Italian at the University of Virginia, writes: "Botticelli's Map of Inferno has long been regarded as one of the most compelling visual representations... of Dante's descent with Virgil through the 'terrible valley of pain.'"
Map of Hell by Michelangelo Caetani, 1855.
Dante's Inferno has been visualized countless times, from purely schematic representations, as in Michelangelo Caetani's 1855 diagram, which has little detail but a clear systematic use of color, to richly illustrated maps, as in Jacques Callot's 1612 version.
Illustrative version of Jacques Callot's map of Hell, 1612.
Even after hundreds of years of cultural change and upheaval, Inferno and its horrific scenes of torture continue to capture 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.
Sandro Botticelli always seemed to me a very subtle and gentle artist and an insecure, unadapted person. Maybe that’s how he was... But recently new details about his life and work were revealed to me, and my opinion about him not only changed, but was enriched. It turns out that there is some kind of secret - not a secret, but in any case unexpected and surprising things that can excite and intrigue... So, which paintings are most symbolic for the artist and who was the model for the main characters of Sandro Botticelli - today we are talking about this.
Botticelli, Birth of Venus
I don’t know how the official interpretation compares: which painting is most famous: “Spring” or “The Birth of Venus”?
Birth of Venus
Both are beautiful, both extremely famous. But for me, as long as I can remember, Botticelli’s Venus has always been the standard of femininity and beauty. I’ve recently been reading Irving Stone’s book “Trouble and Joy.” It is dedicated to Michelangelo, which already makes this literary work unusually attractive in my eyes. But in general this is a kind of textbook about the Renaissance, about Florence - the homeland of a whole galaxy of brilliant masters, about outstanding representatives of the Medici dynasty. Gorgeous thing! And there I read that Sandro Botticelli’s beloved was a certain girl Simonetta, and she also served as the prototype for most of the artist’s irresistible female images.
I suspected that this was the author’s invention, a purely literary character. But no! I read it on Wikipedia - a completely historical person, a person of noble origin, who, apparently, was simply an idol of Florentine high society. She was nicknamed Simonetta the Beautiful due to her incomparable external beauty. But legends have preserved the image of Simonetta as a girl of exceptionally meek, modest and charming behavior. They say that all Florentine men were in love with her, and at the same time, she was spared by the jealousy and envy of women. Does this really happen? It looks like an idealized fairy tale, but the name of Simonetta the Beautiful remained in history, although she lived only 23 years... One way or another, it is believed that Sandro Botticelli secretly loved her all his life, depicted the young woman from memory in his paintings after her death, never did not marry and had no children, and finally, he bequeathed to be buried next to Simonetta... This is such a touching and romantic story that only enhances the tender and refined motives in the painter’s work.
Botticelli, Map of Hell
And suddenly - I’m not afraid of comparison: like a bolt from the blue! - such an image of a slightly blissful artist, who revels in sublime art and platonic love, has become loose and has undergone revision! Again, from fiction, namely from Dan Brown’s novel “Inferno,” I draw various information about Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” And in general, as in the previous case, not only about the great poet and his famous poem, but again about the Renaissance, about Florence and its famous citizens. Describing and explaining in great detail the meaning of the circles of Dante's hell, the author of Inferno, for greater clarity, weaves into his plot a picturesque picture called “Map of Hell.”
The theme of the circles of hell was already developed by artists, composers, and directors of the 20th century. Many video game fans 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 serve hard labor. The poem was written in the dark ages, when the human mind was shackled by the fear of purgatory.
Dante worked on the poem for a long time - from 1307 to 1321. That is, the poem has been glorifying the name of this man for more than 700 years. For literature, this is an excellent example of medieval poetry. The entire poem is written in terzas, with a stylistic charm unprecedented for those times.
The poet describes all these circles of hell as very dark and cruel, as only a person who lived in the era of Catholic despotism could 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 (1st circle), Dante “settled” poets and scientists of antiquity who were not baptized. So, in essence, their souls belong neither to the lower world nor to the higher one. In this place, the human soul experiences sorrow, but there is no bodily torment, writes Dante.
On the 2nd circle, souls are already tormented. They are tormented by gusts of wind. Just as on earth they were restless and sought joy 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 haven of gluttons and gourmets. They are doomed to rot under the constant and nasty 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 drag the same bales towards him.
The last circle of less serious sins associated with incontinence and craving for material things is a circle for the souls of angry, lazy or despondent 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 directed human minds to lies for their own benefit. In all the “open spaces” of the 7th tier, rapists are tormented. And the 8th and 9th circles are for the most “refined” hypocrites, heretics, pimps and seducers. As well as trading priests and alchemists. It is these sins that Dante condemns, and for such souls eternal hard labor in the 9th circle is most terrible.
On the very last circle, in the center, there is a fallen angel frozen into a lake with the ancient name Cocytus. Such historical figures as Judas, as well as Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, who betrayed Caesar, are doomed to be tortured in his teeth.
Dante Alighieri describes the 9 circles of hell as truly terrifying and unusual.
Who inspired Dante?
Like every writer, Dante had his own muse. A girl named Bice (the genius himself later gave her the name Beatrice) inspired the talented young man with just her existence. He was so selflessly and for a long time devoted with all his thoughts to only one lady of his heart that his 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 painting - 1883).
