This is a scene from Dante's inferno, from the 6th CANTO; 'The third circle of hell' (the hell of the gluttons where Cerberus dwells). This is where Dante and the poet Virgil encounter Cerberus. Cerberus is a giant three-headed dog who rules over the level of hell where greedy people and gluttons go when they die. (Note the swollen stomach on Cerberus from engorging himself on the tortured bodies of his victims (this was pointed out in the Inferno)) The big guy in the foreground is Virgil, he's Dante's guide through the different levels of hell, the smaller more frightened man clinging to him, is Dante.
1 comment:
very grim indeed...post a woodcut of the 6th circle..where the "arch heretics", and thier followers who deny the immoratlity of the soul are imprisoned in flaming tombs...Dante defined "Arch Heretics" as those who we today call atheists..the other kinds of Heretics were called either "Schismatics", those who divide the church,the body of believers(he put Muhammad there for instance) or charlatans, witches and sorcerers, etc.,
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