9 circles of hell by Botticelli. “The Abyss of Hell”, Sandro Botticelli - description of the painting

Each of the circles of Hell, counting from top to bottom, in Dante is smaller than the one before it and is separated from the next by a rocky slope. The more excusable sins, which arise rather from the weakness of human nature, are punished in higher circles, and the sins most contrary to human nature are punished in lower circles.

But since the circles become increasingly narrower, this proves that the most inhuman, repulsive sins are committed least often.

The structure of Hell in Dante's description

Categories of sinners

For example, Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between sins arising from passion or malice, and declares the latter worthy of a more severe punishment than the former. Dante's principle does not exclude this scholastic principle, but on the contrary embraces it, but it is broader and does not have a Christian source - Aristotle. His ethics were adopted in many particulars by the scholastics, and Dante directly calls it his own.

Following the theory of his moral teacher, he establishes three categories of basic sins: sins due to intemperance, sensual passion, which Thomas Aquinas also distinguishes; sins of malice, which for him, like for Aristotle, are twofold: sins of open violence and deception. The goal of every evil action, says Dante, is injustice, and this goal is achieved in two ways, both through violence and through deception.

Deception is most unpleasant to God and is punished most severely in Hell, since it is evil, the most characteristic of man, and the abuse of the gifts that constitute his exclusive property, distinguishing him from an animal, while the sins of violence, and everything that likens a person to animals, directly distract him from any use of these gifts.

The sins of intemperance, rooted in the weakness of human nature, are threefold: carnal crimes, revelry, poverty and extravagance, anger and discontent. Between the immoderate and the violent are placed heretics of all kinds, Epicureans, etc., since they contain a particle of both. Those who live by violence are divided into three divisions: those who sin against God and nature, blasphemers, sodomites and usurers. Deception can be twofold: it is committed either against those who do not have confidence in the person deceiving, or against those who have trusted him.

In the first case, only general philanthropy is violated, in the second, personal philanthropy; in the first case it is a simple deception, in the second this sin becomes treason, the most disgusting, inhuman form of sin. Dante lists ten types of criminals as simple deceivers: pimps and seducers, flatterers and harlots, Simonists (persons who traded in church positions), soothsayers, people living by bribery, hypocrites, thieves, bad advisers, peace breakers, deceivers.

Sandro Botticelli. Map of Hell (Circles of Hell - La mappa dell inferno)

Treason can be of four kinds: against blood relatives, fatherland, guests, against the eternal world order of God, that is, against God and the empire.

Circles of Hell

Along with all these sinners or people deprived of hope of salvation, Dante established another category of convicts from those who were neither ardent nor indifferent on earth, “among the average people, whose residence is on the other side of the border line of hell, between front door and Acheron; they are too bad for heaven, too good for hell, and therefore are rejected both here and there. Among them are those neutral angels who, during the rebellion of Lucifer, did not take the side of either God or the rebel.

This group of sinners challenges us to consider it even more thoroughly. At first glance, it is true that it agrees with the ethics of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and Dante himself refers to them as authorities. But the rest of the division, and in particular the establishment of the characteristic differences of Aristotelian categories, has so much originality in itself that it will not be useless to analyze it. To identify people of average temperament, Dante found instructions in the Apocalypse.

The distinction that befalls the devout pagans in the first circle of hell does not in itself have anything that would deviate from the general belief; exactly the same can be said about the four circles of intemperate people. In the description of all these hellish circles, one can recognize the five deadly sins: sensuality, gluttony, stinginess, anger and laziness, just as they were understood by the church and Christian morality.

The original and independent side of the criminal theories that dominate in hell begins with the sixth circle. This circle contains heretics, the seventh circle of rapists, the eighth and ninth two types of deceivers. Here, in Dante, indeed, traces of the views of canon and Roman law are still visible, but they are reduced to a minimum, thanks to the third principle - the principle of German criminal law. Canon law and Christian ethics would undoubtedly recognize heresy as a more serious sin than murder, hypocrisy and treason against relatives or the emperor.

Exactly the same Roman law does not know an offense more serious than that committed in relation to the common good and the state, and almost entirely has no other measure for the crime other than the interest of the state. A crime against an individual has for him secondary importance; it does not recognize betrayal; violence is punished by it only when it violates public peace and security. In short, Roman criminal law is not based on the basis of an ethical legal outlook; the Germanic, on the contrary, finds complete support in it.

The latter hardly cares about the state and punishes only the crimes of individuals, for the most part based on the moral standard of their punishability. The motive of the crime, the method of its execution, are in the foreground for him, and the more outrageous they seem according to national concepts, the more severely they are punished.

Therefore, here the most serious crime is treason, since it violates the most sacred bonds, the bonds of fidelity. Thus, the most insidious and most hidden crimes were punished the most severely by the Germans. Any obvious violence, which did not always even seem worthy of punishment, was punished less severely.

We encounter this German view in Dante's description of hell. Violence is punished less severely than deception, and among the crimes based on lies, treason is punished most severely. Therefore, among rapists we find all kinds of thieves and deceivers, if only their crime was accompanied by open violence: on the contrary, murderers, who were also thieves, are not among the first, but among the last.

Dante's Inferno
Illustration by Gustave Doré

These brief explanations will be enough to prove the identity of the views of the Germans and Dante. Perhaps the question will arise: was this identity accidental or is it based on a deeper connection? As is known, thanks to the Lombards, German legal views dominated at one time in a large part of Italy and did not disappear everywhere even in the thirteenth century.

Therefore, Dante could easily get to know them. But we do not attach such an explanation of great importance; Here we're talking about about the inner sense of justice, which is not cognized, not studied externally and can only be the result general organization, the spiritual essence of man himself.

It is therefore necessary to point out the affinity of Dante’s nature with the German character, as it is found in the very legal consciousness of this people, and to recall at the same time how much these legal views of the poet diverged from those that prevailed in contemporary Italy, especially in the environment surrounding the poet.

It is not known whether the prevailing view was a product of the struggle of parties, but it is quite certain that treason was one of the most disgusting and widespread ulcers Italian life of that time and that it occurs in all forms and under all circumstances, not accompanied anywhere moral consciousness rights. Based on this fact, one would like to call Dante more Germanic than Romanesque in nature.

Sin Specialization

Dante's Inferno
Illustration by Gustave Doré

Various types of hellish punishments

People of average temperament in hell suffer most of all from the consciousness of their own insignificance and their distance from people good and evil; the punishment of the unbaptized consists only of hopeless impulses, without any other torments. With unchaste people, on the contrary, that type of torture begins, distinctive feature which constitutes its eternity. They are tormented by sensual lusts and never achieve peace. The gluttons in Dante's Inferno are mired in a swamp, which, due to rain, snow and hail, constantly remains cold and sticky.

Misers and spendthrifts, forming two choirs, in their constant movement bump into each other, reproach each other for stinginess and wastefulness, and then part to come together again. The angry and dissatisfied are with Dante in the hot swamp of the Styx, fighting with all their members and tearing each other apart. Heretics lie in hell in open flaming coffins, which after Last Judgment will close forever. Those who have sinned with violence against their neighbors are immersed in a hot stream of blood and are boiled in it; According to the severity of their crime, they are placed at greater or lesser depth.

Suicides and players in Dante's description are forever deprived of their bodily shell and inhabit a forest full of thorny plants in hell with their souls; after the resurrection of the dead they will bring their bodies and hang them on the branches. Violent people who have sinned against God are struck by an eternal rain of fire; blasphemers continue to blaspheme God and resist him. Dante's sodomites constantly flee from the flames falling on them; The moneylenders can hardly hold their bags in their hands, deflecting the fire from themselves.

Deceivers, pimps and seducers go in the opposite direction, driven with unceasing speed by the blows of the whip that the horned demons give them. Flatterers and courtesans sit in Dante's pit filled with all kinds of uncleanness. The Simonists plunged, heads down, into the rocks, while their feet burned in the fire blazing from without. The soothsayers walk in Dante's hell, with their faces turned backwards; people who can be bribed and those who bribed them are mired in a lake of black tar.

The pretenders can hardly drag their feet - they are dressed in heavy monastic robes, which appear to be gold on the outside, but lead on the inside. Thieves steal from each other their only asset - their human appearance. Evil, secret advisers are invisible and hidden by the devouring flame. The perpetrators of strife, sects, etc. walk around with cloven bodies and disjointed members.

Counterfeiters, perverters of words, etc., slanderers and liars are completely arbitrarily tormented in hell by devils, since they themselves did not respect the law during their lifetime. Traitors, people who have sinned against the rules of general and personal love, are in an icy lake, and those who hated each other most during life are pressed closest to each other. Below all of them is in Dante's description the embodied principle of evil, Lucifer, with three faces.

In one of these images he crushes Judas, who betrayed Christ, and in the other two, he crushes the traitor to the cause of the empire. Lucifer is the ruler of hell; all evil came from him and returns to him. That's why he has three faces: one dark, the other red, the third half yellow, half white.

In this circumstance, they rightly saw a contrast with the Trinity or even a connection with the three main types of punishable sins.

Among other parts of hell

That is why in Dante's hell the pagan deities and heroes rise again in the form of demons and have the same meaning as the fallen angels who turned into devils. The poet, without hesitation, portrays Charon as a carrier, Minos as a hellish judge. In the same way, Dante gives representatives to all other circles mythological images, which also already have a corresponding allegorical meaning.

The dog Cerberus is a representative of the circle of gluttons in hell; Pluto (in ancient times former god not only the underworld, but also wealth) - the circle of the stingy and wasteful, Phlegias - the angry. The three furies are, along with the fallen angels, the guardians of a real hellish city, where people who have sinned with violence and deception are located. The Minotaur leads, in particular, people who have sinned with violence. Centaurs punish in hell those who oppressed their neighbors; harpies, as symbols of reproaches of conscience, torment suicides.

Geryon has become the leader of a circle of deceivers and remains hidden while the others are always visible. The difference we notice in the use that Dante makes of the originally pagan and biblical demons is that to punish the most serious sinners, deceivers, he uses only the latter and presents them in a much worse form than the former.

But even apart from this special example, Dante, in his description of hell, everywhere and always refers to mythology as something real, living, and uses it with the same freedom with which he uses others historical facts and personalities.

The best and most convincing example of such an attitude to the matter is the ninth canto, where Dante puts into the mouth of an angel who descended from heaven to tame demons: the myth of the descent of Hercules into the underworld.

Dante's Inferno
Illustration by Gustave Doré

Pagan ideas

His head is gold, his chest and arms are silver, his lower belly is made of copper, everything else is iron, except for his right leg, made of baked clay. He turned his back to Damietta in Egypt, his face to Rome. All named parts of the body, except the head, have cracks from which tears flow and, having united, flow into the hellish abyss. There they, according to Dante's description, form four hellish rivers, Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon and Cocytus.

Acheron constitutes the upper boundary of hell. Between him and the Styx are those who sinned with intemperance. The Styx separates them from the real hellish city, where heretics, deceivers and those who sinned with violence are punished; the latter are especially surrounded by Phlegethon. Cocytus pours into the lowest space and, freezing, forms an icy lake, the abode of traitors. This image of the old man was obviously compiled by Dante from the pagan myth of Chronos and from the tale of the vision of Nebuchadnezzar.

Dante makes of all this a truly original application, which once again illuminates his system, already familiar to us, with new light. The image of the old man in his description represents the state, gold, silver, copper, iron correspond to the known four centuries, clay right leg means the depravity of the current century, the cracks - the increasing sinfulness of modernity, the tears - the grief and sinfulness accumulated by humanity.

They turn in a very ingenious way into hellish rivers, washing various types of sinners or serving, like Styx and Cocytus, to actually punish them. The island of Crete was chosen because it serves as the cradle of Jupiter, which in Dante’s eyes has always been a symbol of justice, i.e., empire.

Elder, direct your gaze to Rome, around which the entire development of history should be concentrated; it was like a mirror for him, because it reflected, even too clearly, his own disintegration.

The most heterogeneous elements

Sandro Botticelli "Map of Hell" ("Circles of Hell")

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. A series of drawings by Botticelli remained unfinished, but even in this form it can be recognized as the pinnacle of art book illustration Italian Quattrocento (XV 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.

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

And this is an illustration for the 34th and last song Dante's "Hell": an image of the three-headed Lucifer, who torments the three greatest sinners of mankind: Brutus and Cassius - the murderers of Julius Caesar, and Judas - the traitor of Christ.

Sandro Botticelli
Lucifer Tormenting in Hell three greatest sinners of humanity

The Early Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (1440–1510) is known primarily for his radiant portraits of unidentified young people, very reminiscent of modern model tests, and only then for his ponderous canvases on religious theme. In one of these paintings, Botticelli depicted the structure of Dante's hell. Let's try to take a quick look around this detailed universe without resorting to art-historical gibberish.

The artist completed this work in 1480. IN currently it is kept in the Vatican Library

Why it will be easy for you to understand Botticelli

1. “Hell” was created as a penance, but not in a high sense. In fact, the artist had a cheerful disposition; he liked to write most of all. beautiful girls and boys. But it was in deep hell that Botticelli found himself, having spent all the money he earned in the service of the Pope on excesses and superficial hobbies. I had to return home, read Dante, and think a lot.

2. The picture became especially popular in the 21st century, when the pop fiction writer Dan Brown made “Hell” a cipher in his next bestseller about ancient ciphers “Inferno”. So the illustration for one book became the hero of another.

3. Of all the Western concepts of hell, it is this Mediterranean version that is closest to ours cultural code. Here, of course, there is something alien Orthodox person Purgatory, but the punishments and torments of sinners are already depicted in detail, which was not the case in more earlier versions, and which is not very clearly depicted in the deserted and endlessly dull Mephistophelian hell. Plus, it's funnel shaped!

4. The artist devotes Special attention punishing corrupt officials. They are tormented in the eighth circle by unpleasant entities with spears, who, by the way, are also doomed to eternal torment in this place. Here everyone is equal: both high-ranking former laymen and, in fact, the devils also suffer. Simply because they are devils.

5. Botticelli’s “Hell” is essentially a comic book. And his main characters are himself and the poet Virgil. They, elegant, are depicted many times, like in a cartoon. Their visions are typical of creative people and generally tough guys: the journey begins with the spectacle of the demon-tormented souls of pimps, informers, opportunists and prostitutes floundering in the mud.

Tour of 9 circles

Circle First. Limbo

What also gathered here were not baptized infants, pagans and lovers of the latest religious movements, but also ancient poets and thinkers: Homer, Plato, Socrates. The Old Testament righteous Noah and Abraham waited here for their turn in Paradise.

Circle Two. Voluptuousness

Those who have sinned in the name of love or confused it with banal lust have gathered here. The souls of sinners are twisted by gusts of wind, like in a centrifuge. Everyone is sick.

Circle Three. Gluttony

The gluttons rot here in the snow and rain, pondering their behavior. But all to no avail - Cerberus comes and eats the loaded sinners.

Circle Four. Greed

The souls of greedy people are busy with meaningless work: two crowds of sinners are pushing heavy loads in front of them, moving towards each other. They collide and then separate to start all over again.

Circle Five. Anger and laziness

IN Lately You can justify your incontinence and promiscuity with increased emotionality. Those who did this, in Dante's hell, will forever fight with their own kind in an endless swamp.

Circle Six. Heretics and pseudo-gurus

Furies fly everywhere here. They watch over false teachers and prophets who, crushed by inescapable sorrow, lie motionless in open tombs.

Circle Seven. Murderers

Criminal souls of all stripes, who committed violent crimes during their lifetime, eternally suffer under the fiery rain and boil in a bloody river. From time to time, hungry dogs and harpies are involved in the execution of punishments.

Circle Eight. Crooks and thieves

“Sinners walk in two opposing streams, scourged by demons, stuck in fetid feces, some of their bodies are chained in rocks, fire streams down their feet. Someone is boiling in the tar, and if he sticks out, the devils stick the hooks. Those clad in lead robes are placed on a red-hot brazier, sinners are disemboweled and tormented by vermin, leprosy and lichen.”. Exhaustive.

Circle Ninth. Traitors and apostates

This is the lowest circle, encased in ice. This is an unbearable minus. All famous traitors like Brutus and Judas are endlessly chewed by Lucifer himself. He languishes on the lowest floor.
LiveJournal Media, 2016

Botticelli's drawings illustrating the Songs of Hell from Dante's Divine Comedy, filled with small, rushing figures of sinners, are full of an alarming confusion of lines; some of them, where the motif of a grandiose vault-staircase connecting the circles of hell is repeated, has genuine stern grandeur.

The colored sheets for Cantos tenth and eighteenth give an idea of ​​how Botticelli intended the entire cycle of illustrations. Main characters- Dante and Virgil - attract attention with bright robes against 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 the afterlife, are punished there.

Everywhere you look there is the appearance of an old tomb, -
So here you could see graves everywhere,
For those who died with the bitterest punishment;
A persistent flame, lit in secret,
Burned in these pits, making them so hot,
How hard it is to heat iron.
In open coffins and in open crayfish
The tormented breasts moaned bitterly
Outcasts - you know, their vision was pitiful.

“The Divine Comedy” by 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, pimps and seducers moving in rows are subjected to cruel scourging; the souls of hypocrites and harlots are immersed in a ditch of sewage.

Naked sinners walk in rows:
Some rush towards us in alarm,
And in our footsteps - but with a wider step - others,
Like the Romans, who are many in number,
In the anniversary year, avoiding the crush,
The bridge was divided into two roads:
One column stretched, walking
Towards the castle, to the Church of St. Peter,
And another one was walking towards her, up the hill.
Here and there in the depths of the harsh
Demons with horns brutally scourged
The sinful backs of the naked people.

“The Divine Comedy” by Dante “Hell” Canto XVIII, verses 25-36.

The drawing for Song Thirty-one depicts ancient giants who rebelled against the gods. As punishment, they were chained in a dark well. Giants symbolize the brute force of nature.

Among them is a builder Tower of Babel King Nimrod blowing a horn suspended from his neck. Gigint Elfiat, tightly entwined with five turns of chain, starting from the neck so that right hand pressed to the body from behind, and the left one from the front. Antaeus, the only one free from chains, takes Dante and Virgil to the next, ninth circle.

Illustrating the thirty-fourth and final Canto of Hell, Botticelli depicts in the last circle of hell, called Giudecca, a three-headed Lucifer, with wings like bat. In the teeth of the three heads of the prince of darkness are the three greatest sinners and traitors - Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar, and Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Prince of darkness, above whom all Hell is piled,
Half raised his chest made of ice;
And the giant is more than my equal,
What is in his hand (so that you can count,
What is he like in full height, and the power of vision,
I fully comprehended what appeared to us).
Anciently beautiful, today it’s disgusting,
He raised his disdainful gaze to the Creator -
He is the embodiment of all vices and evil!
And it was necessary to look so disgusting -
His head was equipped with three faces!
The first is above the chest, red, savage;
And there are two on the sides, the place where they meet
Over the shoulders; with 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 for a long time
Near the Nile Falls, blackened.
Under each is a pair of the widest wings,
As befits a bird so powerful;
The goldfinches never matured under such a sail.
Without feathers, like a bat;
He rotated them, and the three winds blew
They flew, each in a viscous stream;
These jets made Cocytus freeze, freezing.
Six eyes wept; three mouths through lips
They were oozing saliva and turning pink with blood.
And here, and here, and there the teeth tormented
By the sinner; So there are only three of them,
And they endure great suffering.

Hell and its 9 circles made some noise in due time.

The effect continues to this day. Once upon a time, great dreamer and the entertainer Dante Alighieri described hell in his “Divine Comedy”. In his opinion, the underworld consists of 9 circles. The lower each circle, the more serious the sins that a person committed during his lifetime.

Today for you is a colorful guide to the circles of hell from The Divine Comedy.

Now you will see that not everything is so bad in this world ☺

1st CIRCLE OF HELL - LIMBUS.

Its guardian is none other than CHARON.

A stern, gloomy and principled grandfather. He transported the souls of the dead across the river STYX. Performing your duties clearly and specifically. Moreover, under no circumstances did he take anyone back. Souls in this circle are tormented by the punishment of “painless sorrow.” Basically, representatives of the first circle of hell are infants who have not been baptized and virtuous non-Christians. I mean it's simple good people who did not quite obey the church.

Limbo is home to ancient philosophers and poets (including Virgil): Noah, Moses and Abraham were also here - all the righteous men mentioned in the Old Testament, but then they were allowed to ascend to Paradise.

2nd CIRCLE OF HELL - LUST.

This place is guarded by MINOS - intractable, fair judge the damned and the father of the Minotaur, who distributes souls in circles.

During his lifetime, King Minos was a great lover of women, but he was also a good ruler. He wrote laws for all Cretans (Island of Crete). He received these notes from Zeus himself, in a cave. What else? =)

So, Minos rules on the second circle and judges the souls of the departed. Voluptuous people spend eternity with him. That is, all adulterers, harlots and just people who showed excessive ardor in bed. The 2nd circle of hell punishes these scoundrels with torsion, torment by a storm and blows of souls against rocks.

3 CIRCLE OF HELL - Gluttony

This circle is guarded by CERBERUS, and guards the exit from world of the dead, and not an entrance, as many people think.

In general, Cerberus is, in fact, a beautiful three-headed dog, which has a poisonous snake instead of a tail. The heads are very similar to those worn by his mother, Echidna. Some are inclined to believe that he has 50 goals or even a hundred.

This handsome man was killed by Hercules.

The 3rd circle of hell is inhabited by unfortunate gluttons, gluttons and even gourmets! The most famous, thanks to Dante Alighieri, is Ciacco. This glutton lives in a stinking swamp, where cold rain constantly falls on him.

In general, in the third circle of hell, everyone is punished - rotting. They decompose there under the scorching sun and pouring rain.

4TH CIRCLE OF HELL - STINGY (GREED).

PLUTOS rules there.

IN Greek mythology known as the god of wealth. Most often, when depicting Plutos, a cornucopia was attributed to him.

But Dante described him in his “Divine Comedy” as a bestial demon.

In the 4th circle of hell, misers, greedy people and wasteful individuals languish, unable to make adequate expenses. Their punishment is not as vile as on the third round, but more “heavy”.

They drag huge weights from one place to another and, if they somehow collide with each other, they immediately begin a furious fight.

5 CIRCLE OF HELL - ANGER and LAZINESS

A rather gloomy and gloomy place, guarded by the son of ARES (the god of war) himself. His son's name is PHLEGIUS.

To get to the 5th circle of hell you need to be very angry, lazy or sad. Or better yet, all at once!

I went and killed a bunch of people, was too lazy to clean up the corpses and became sad =))

So, in the fifth circle of hell there is an eternal fight. The place of the fight is the STYX swamp. The darkest thing about that river is the bottom. It consists of those who were depressed and bored during their lifetime.

So, smile all the time, you never know...

6 CIRCLE OF HELL - THE WALLS OF THE CITY OF DITA.

These are the walls of the city DITA (the Romans called Hades, the god underground kingdom, aka Orc). Yes, all these are the names of the underground god, after whom the city was named.

Guard the 6th circle of hell - FURY. Grumpy, cruel and very angry women.

They say that the furies appeared as a result of the very first crime - Kronos wounded his father Uranus, drops of his blood that fell to the ground gave birth to these evil ones.

The furies mock heretics and false teachers.

Punishment in the 6th circle of hell is existence in the form of ghosts, in red-hot graves.

The transition to the seventh circle is fenced off by a fetid abyss.

7 CIRCLE OF HELL - CITY OF DIT. It is divided into three belts. The main inhabitants are people who committed violence. But in each zone there live different types of rapists:

1 BELT is called FLAGETON.

Those who committed violence against their neighbor, against him material assets and heritage. So, tyrants, robbers and robbers spend their time in the first belt. The guys are boiling in a ditch of hot blood, and if anyone emerges, the CENTAURS shoot at him.

By the way, according to Dante Alighieri and his “Divine Comedy”, the Macedonian and the tyrant Dionysius swim precisely there, splashing in the warm waves of the blood of their victims.

2 BELT is the FOREST OF SUICIDES.

Those who committed violence against themselves languish there, they are turned into trees and they are torn to shreds by HARPIES (daughters of the sea deity Thaumant).

Known for suddenly appearing and kidnapping human children and souls. Also, those who senselessly disposed of their wealth are gamblers and the like.

Spenders and gamblers are tormented by hound dogs.

3 BELT – COMBUSTIBLE SANDS.

Blasphemers who have committed violence against deities spend their time there. Also those who showed violence against their nature (Sadomites), as well as art (extortion).

The punishment is staying in an absolutely barren desert, the sky of which drips fiery rain on the heads of the unfortunate.

Protects those languishing in the 7th circle of hell and its belts - MINOTAUR.

A creature that resulted from a perverted relationship between the wife of King Minos, Pasiphae, and a bull donated by Poseidon.

Pasiphae copulated with a bull, seducing him by lying down in a wooden model of a cow made by Daedalus (an outstanding artist and engineer who built a labyrinth on the island of Crete).

8 CIRCLE OF HELL - SINS, EVIL CREVICES.

The circle consists of 10 ditches. And this is the most fucking popular of all circles!

It is also called EVIL CRACKS or SINUSES.

The guard of the 8th circle of hell is GERION - a giant with six arms, six legs and wings. This monster consisted of three human bodies.

He was killed by none other than Hercules!

In Evil Crevices, deceivers suffer their difficult fate. And now, about the types of torture and executions in each of the 10 ditches:

1 ROV.

Seducers and pimps sit there. All these sinners are walking in two columns, towards each other. They are constantly tormented by demon drivers.

2 ROV.

Filled with flatterers. Mired in fetid excrement, they while away their time.

As if, watching TV and surfing the Internet all day and night, we are not like these unfortunate people.

3 ROV.

The 8th circle of hell, according to Dante Alighieri and his “Divine Comedy,” is occupied by high-ranking clergy who traded positions in the church.

They are Simonists. Simonists received their definition thanks to the attempt of the Jew Simon to buy the gift of performing miracles from the Apostle Peter and the Apostle John.

The punishment for them is imprisonment of the body in a rock, head down. Hot lava flows down the feet of the Simonists.

4 ROV.

The edges are filled with astrologers, witches, fortune tellers and soothsayers.

Their heads are turned 180 degrees (towards the back).

At 5 RVE

The raking demons are having fun. They boil the bribe-takers in tar, and pierce those who stick out with hooks. So, if you are a “dirty” politician, train yourself not to breathe under tar for as long as possible during your lifetime;)

6 ROV

filled with hypocrites clad in lead robes.

7 ROV

- thieves who are killed again and again by the poisonous reptiles of the earth.

8 ROV

9 ROV

- a haven for the instigators of discord. They are subjected to eternal torture - disembowelment.

10 ROV

- false witnesses, counterfeiters, counterfeiters of metal and words.

People who work with metal are very lethargic, but at the same time they suffer from terrible scabies. False witnesses in hell run around in rage and bite everyone they meet.

The counterfeiters are disfigured by dropsy and die (but not completely).

Forgers of words are exhausted from fever and headache.

9 CIRCLE OF HELL DANTE.

The most sinister and thus the most attractive. His name is BETRAYAL, THE BELT OF CAIN, THE MIDDLE, THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, THE BELT OF JUDECCA AND THE ICY LAKE OF COCYTHUS.

Among the most famous celebrities who spend eternity there are: BRUTUS, JUDAS ISCARIOT and CASSIUS.

The 9th circle of hell is guarded by stern guards. Giants named EPHIALTES, ANTHEAUS, BRIAREUS AND LUCIFER.

BELT OF CAIN - Traitors to relatives.

CAIN in Western Semitic and biblical mythology

1) eldest son of Adam and Eve,

2) son of the angel Samael and Eve, or

3) the son of the evil one (devil) and Eve, in general, the very first person born on Earth.

Cain is the father of Enoch and the founder of his line.

And also Cain is a fratricide.

ANTENORA BELT - Traitors to the Motherland and like-minded people.

ANTENOR- in ancient greek mythology Trojan, friend and adviser to Priam, husband of Theano (Theano), daughter of the Thracian king Kissei. Antenor himself is a traitor according to post-Homeric legend.

TOLOMEY'S BELT - Traitors to friends and table mates.

This circle received its name from the name of Ptolemy, the governor of Jericho, who, having invited his father-in-law, the prince-high priest of Judea, and his two sons, treacherously killed them at a feast.

GIUDECCA BELT

is the last circle, or rather the central circle of hell. The belt is named Giudecca after the Apostle Judas, who betrayed Christ.

In the middle of the Giudecca (in other words, in the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, LUCIFER, frozen with his shins into an ice floe, torments in his three mouths the traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Brutus and Cassius).

And now a little about the wonderful guards of the 9th circle of hell:

BRIAREUS

- half-bull, half-snake or giant with 100 arms and 50 heads. He defended himself with 100 shields from the lightning of Zeus himself.

EPHIALTE

- simply an aggressive giant with immeasurable physical strength. Known for asking for the hand of Athena herself. Although, some believe that to Hera. But what difference does it make who disgraced him? After all, neither one nor the other were seen in an intimate relationship with Ephialtes.

ANTEI

- son of Gaia and Poseidon.

Antey received incredible strength, in contact with the ground. And the earth is his mother, named Gaia.

He is the king of Libya. During his lifetime, this giant loved to fight with all travelers and defeat them all. He even built an entire temple out of the skulls of the losers.

He was defeated by, who do you think, HERCULES!

This cunning son of Zeus tore the unfortunate, lover of skull structures, from the ground, and then strangled him or broke his back.

By the way, they say that Hercules made life in Libya better.

LUCIFER, as well as DARNISH.

By the way, from Latin Lucifer is nothing other than luminous.

Once upon a time this “light bearer” was an angel. As they say, he became proud and wanted to take the throne of God.

Well, mutual hatred began there, Lucifer became what we know him now, after which he was expelled from paradise. Thus he ended up in hell.

As for the 9th circle of hell, Dante describes in detail the prince of darkness Lucifer: he has three mouths, in each of which he suffers greatest traitors in history, namely Judas, Brutus and Cassius. VIP seats, so to speak.

Traitors are doomed to the 9th circle of hell. The most insidious sin, according to Dante Alighieri. All possible types of traitors languish there. Traitors to the Motherland, traitors to loved ones, traitorous friends, and so on. All of them were frozen up to their necks in ice, and their traitorous faces were turned to the bottom. They experience eternal torment in the cold.

That's all 9 circles of hell by Dante Alighieri.

I hope you gained some knowledge. But I hasten to remind you that this is not a lie, this is a purely Catholic idea of ​​hell. So, if this is knowledge, it is only in the area fiction, which made you fall asleep during lessons and classes, without even trying to remember it.

Not all of them, of course, but still...

“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 more detail illustrating literary masterpiece XIV century. Most Interest evokes 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 spectacle 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; voluptuous people who fall into the second circle for lust suffer torment and torment by a hurricane; gluttons in the third circle rot in the rain and hail; misers and spendthrifts drag weights from place to place in the fourth circle; the angry and lazy always fight in the swamps of the fifth circle; heretics and false prophets lie in the burning graves of the sixth; all kinds of rapists, depending on the subject of the abuse, suffer in different zones of the seventh circle - boil in a ditch of hot blood, tormented by harpies or languish in the desert under the fiery rain; deceivers of those who did not trust languish in the cracks of the eighth circle: some are stuck in fetid feces, some are boiling 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 in ice, who torments in his three jaws the traitors of the majesty of the earth and heaven (Judas, Marcus Junius Brutus and Cassius - 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 - an illustration of Dante's Divine Comedy. Unknown exact dates creation of manuscripts. Researchers agree that Botticelli began working on them in the mid-1480s and, with some interruptions, was busy with them until the death of the customer, Lorenzo the Magnificent de' Medici.

Not all pages have been preserved. Presumably, there should be about 100 of them; 92 manuscripts have reached us, four of which 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 simply throw away a sheet of paper with a failed sketch. Therefore, Botticelli first worked with a silver needle, squeezing out the design. Some manuscripts show how the design changed: from the composition as a whole to the position of individual figures. Only when the artist was satisfied with the sketch did he trace the outlines in ink.

On back side For each illustration, Botticelli indicated Dante's text, which explained the drawing.

Context

"The Divine Comedy" is a kind of response to Dante's events own life. Having suffered a fiasco 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 the guide in The Divine Comedy is Virgil, the ancient Roman poet.

The dark forest in which the hero gets lost is a metaphor for the poet’s sins and quests. Virgil (reason) saves the hero (Dante) from terrible beasts (mortal sins) and leads him through Hell to Purgatory, after which he gives way to Beatrice (divine grace) on the threshold of heaven.

The fate of the artist

Botticelli was from a family of goldsmiths and had to deal with gold and other precious metals. However, the boy liked sketching and drawing much more. Immersed in a world of fantasy, Sandro forgot about his surroundings. He turned life into art, and art became life for him.

"Spring" by Botticelli, 1482

Among his contemporaries, Botticelli was not perceived as genius master. Yes, good artist. But that was the period when many people worked, 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 not a genius.

“The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli, 1484−1486

Botticelli was patronized by the Medici, famous art connoisseurs. 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. Nevertheless, he had neither his own home nor his family. The very idea of ​​marriage frightened him.

After meeting the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who in his sermons convincingly called for repentance and renunciation of 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.