Hell

HELL. - According to Catholic doctrine, it is the place in which the rebellious angels and men who have died in mortal sin are eternally punished.

Etymologically it derives from the Latin infernus "lower, subterranean place" and corresponds to the Greek ἀδός "dark place" (from the privative α and the root a) ["to see"]) and to the Germanic Hole (German Hölle, English hell), which means cavern. The Hebrew ἐδ'ῶ seems to derive from ἐδ'ῶ, fodit, excavit and indicates: pit, dark cavity, void. This interpretation is confirmed by Gen. 37, 35; Num. 16, 30; Deut. 32, 22; Iob. 10, 21-22; Ps. 85, 13; Prov. 15, 24;

Is. 14, 9; Ez. 31, 15. Others prefer to give the root ἐδ'ῶ the meaning popascit, which would indicate an insatiable abyss that devours men, or even a place of interrogation, as it were the dwelling of the spirits that were consulted (cf. Prov. 27, 20; 30, 16; Is. 5, 14; Ps. 6, 6; 89, 49).

I. EXISTENCE OF HELL

The Hebrews, like all ancient peoples, admitted the survival of man after death. They held that all the dead (Ps. 89, 49; Job 3, 13-19) descended into sheol, an immense cavern, as large as a region (Job 10, 21-22; Ps. 88, 13), divided into sectors of varying depth (Is. 14, 15; Ez. 32, 23), poetically conceived as a deep abyss, almost an insatiable monster (Ps. 144, 7; Prov. 1, 12; 27, 20; 30, 15), which no longer gives back its prey (Job 7, 9; 14, 12; 16, 22; 17, 13-16). A dark place, where "nullus ordo sed sempiternus horror inhabitat" (Job 10, 21), it is described as a prison land, closed by gates and bars (Is. 38, 10; Job 38, 17; Ps. 9, 14; 107, 18). There the dead, commonly called réphá'im (weak, departed), lead a half-life, shadowy, without knowledge or will, almost immersed in deep lethargy (Job 14, 12).

This vague conception of the afterlife, which prescinds from a clear distinction between the fate of the good and that of the wicked, is dominant in the historical books (Pentateuch, Judges, Kings), and is slightly modified in the moral books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), in which, from the anguished spectacle of the injustices of this earth, one rises to the concept of a sanction in the beyond (Prov. 11, 4; Eccl. 12, 13-14). The accent takes on precise contours in the Prophets, who describe in strong colors the otherworldly punishment of the wicked: Is. 66, 23-24: "All shall come to bow down before me, and going out from the walls they shall see the corpses of the men who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind." It is the great prophetic vision of eternal punishment, which takes its cue from the macabre spectacle of the valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem. The description is repeated in Jud. 16, 20-21: "Woe to the nations that rise up against my people: the Lord, the Almighty, will punish them on the day of Judgment, when he sends fire and worms into their flesh, so that they cry out in pain forever." Daniel (12, 1-2), announcing for the first time the resurrection of the wicked with a view to a judgment of condemnation, says clearly: "Many of those who sleep in the dust shall awake: some to eternal life, others to reproach and eternal infamy." Similar themes are developed by Is. 14, 9-20; 33, 14; Ez. 32, 23; Zach. 5, 1-11; Mal. 4, 1-3.

This faith in otherworldly retribution, which until the 3rd century B.C. belonged to the chosen souls and the great seers of Israel, became common after the religious persecution of Antiochus IV, under which many Jews suffered martyrdom. The sight of the heroes who, in order to be faithful to God, had sacrificed their lives, deepened in the souls of the persecuted the idea of the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked. This faith vibrates in the words of the mother of the Maccabees and of her seven sons, in which the announcement of eternal punishment is fiercely hurled in the face of the persecutors (II Mach. 7, 1-39), and permeates the whole book of Wisdom, according to which the wicked will be oppressed by indescribable torments and will groan in vain at the universal Judgment, when they will witness the happiness of the just (5, 3-13).

The Precursor, link between the two Testaments, summarizes the doctrine of the Old in the penitential cry: "Brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance" (Mt. 3, 7) and opens the New by pointing to the Messiah already come as the one who "has his winnowing fan to sift the grain: and he will clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into the barn and burn the chaff with a fire that shall never be quenched" (Lk. 3, 7, 17). The idea of the unquenchable fire joined to that of the worm that does not die, already powerfully staged by Is. 66, 23-24, repeated by Jud. 16, 20-21, taken up again by St. John, returns constantly on the lips of Jesus, who joins it with the macabre image of gehenna (many times in the Synoptics). This word is composed of gē' ("valley") and Hinnōm (probably the name of the ancient Jebusite owner). By this toponymic designation was indicated a ravine southwest of Jerusalem, sadly famous because there Ahaz (II Kings 16, 3) and Manasseh (ibid. 21, 6) had sacrificed and burned human victims, especially children, in honor of Moloch. The horrendous crime, later repeated by the Jews, was stigmatized by Jeremiah (7, 31-32; 19, 4-7; 31, 38-40) and by Ezekiel (20, 30-31). From that time the sinister name carried with it the idea of the fire that devours victims and of the worms that slowly consumed the unburied corpses. Jesus, evoking this historico-prophetic image, engraved in the minds of his hearers a strong and appropriate idea of the eternal punishment of the wicked. In his preaching he indicated the candidates for gehenna in those who insult their brothers (Mt. 5, 21-26), in hypocrites (Mt. 11, 23; 23, 15; 24, 51; Lk. 10, 15), in apostates (Mt. 10, 28; Lk. 12, 5), in those who wish to serve two masters (Lk. 5, 29-30; 18, 9). Of particular force is the phrase: "And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better to enter into life maimed, than with two hands to be cast into gehenna, into the unquenchable fire (πῦρ τὸ ἄσβετον) where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mk. 9, 42-43). Moreover, under the thin veil of the Gospel parables Jesus clearly allowed the prospects of eternal damnation to be glimpsed: the weeds will be thrown into the fire: "sic erit in consummatione saeculi... mittent eos in caminum ignis (εἰς τὴν κάμινον τοῦ πυρός); ibi erit fletus et stridor dentium" (Mt. 13, 40-42); in the haul of fish, the wicked will be thrown away (Mt. 13, 47-50); at the wedding banquet, whoever does not wear the wedding garment will be cast "in tenebras exteriores" (Mt. 22, 1-14); the foolish virgins will remain outside the door (Mt. 25, 1-13); the slothful servant will be driven from the master's house (Mt. 25, 14, 30; Lk. 19, 1-28).

In the great eschatological discourse Jesus foretells that at the universal Judgment the Lord will separate the good from the wicked and to these will address the words: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire (εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον), which was prepared for the devil and his angels... And these will go away into eternal punishment and the just into eternal life" (Mt. 25, 31-46).

The Apostles echo the teaching of the Master. St. Paul several times enumerates the sins that exclude from the kingdom of God (Rom. 2, 7-9; I Cor. 6, 9-10; Gal. 5, 19-21; Eph. 5, 5) and recalls to the Thessalonians' minds the otherworldly justice, by which the persecuted will find consolation and the persecutors "paenas dabunt in interitu aeternas" (II Thess. 1, 9). St. Peter with imaginative expressions foretells to the wicked their future suffering: "Hi sunt fontes sine aqua et nebulae turbinibus exagitatae quibus caligo tenebrarum reservantur" (II Pt. 2, 12-17). St. Jude recalls the punishment of the Pentapolis to admonish the sodomites "exemplum ignis aeterni paenas sustinentes" (Jud. 7) and compares sinners to wandering stars "quibus pro-cell of darkness is reserved forever" (Jude 13). St. John in the Apocalypse speaks of the abyss, of which Satan is the king (9:11), because he holds its keys (9:1); when he opens the gates to unleash his satellites upon the world, "from the pit comes smoke, like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air are darkened by it" (9:2). From the abyss emerge the Antichrist, the beast and the multitude of demons, prefigured in the army of locusts (11:7; 17:8). An angel will cast Satan back into his depths and will seal its opening hermetically, so that he may deceive the nations no more (20:1-3). The struggle between the infernal powers and the Church, between the city of God and that of Satan, foreshadowed in Mt. 16:18, is here more fully delineated, and in the intervention of the avenging angel is indicated the fulfillment of the promise: Non praevalebunt.

The imposing complex of biblical data concerning hell weighed upon the minds of the first Christian generations, who heroically endured persecutions and martyrdoms in the unshakable hope of reward and, imitating the intrepid Maccabees, threatened the executioners and all the wicked (unbelievers, heretics, the dissolute) with eternal fire (Ignatius of Antioch, Eph., 16, 1; Martyrium Polycarpi, 2, 3; Epistola ad Diognetum, 10, 7; St. Justin, Apol., I, 21; PG 6, 361; St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haeres., 4, 28, 2; PG 7, 1061; Tertullian, Apologet., 48; PL 1, 527; St. Cyprian, Ad Demetr. 24; PL 4, 561). The peaceful possession of this faith was disturbed in the 3rd century by Origen, who, insisting on the mercy of God and on the medicinal purpose of punishments, held that the eternal fire of Scripture had the simple pedagogical purpose of turning the minds of the simple away from sin, but that in reality it was not such, because man, retaining free will even in the hereafter, would after indefinite trials be purified and would attain happiness. This system, called ἀποκατάστασις (restitutio), foreshadowed in De principiis, 3, 6, 6: PG 11, 338, provoked throughout the East a strong reaction, led by Peter and Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, Methodius of Olympus. Even St. Athanasius and Eusebius of Caesarea, who admired the great master, were opposed to him. Only a few monks (cf. Epiphanius, Ep. ad Io. Hier., 5: PG 42, 385) accepted his convenient theory, from which St. Gregory of Nyssa was not totally averse (Oratio catechetica magna, 26: PG 45, 69). In the West, on the other hand, the Origenian doctrine gained late but numerous and ardent supporters among priests, monks and especially among laymen devoted to vice, as St. Jerome attests (Ep. 62, 2; 83; 3, 127, 9). The same Saint, who for some time had championed the new theory, after 396 rejected it, branding it with words of fire: "If... there shall be a restoration of all, what difference will there be between the Mother of the Lord and the victims of public lusts? Will the devil and Gabriel be the same? The Apostles and the demons?" (In Ian., 3, 6: PL 25, 1142). But once the controversy with Rufinus had subsided, in the soul of the old doctor the Origenian idea seemed to revive (Dial. adv. Pelagianos, 1, 28: PL 23, 344). Even St. Ambrose, fascinated by the name and authority of the Alexandrian teacher, did not succeed in keeping himself totally immune from the erroneous opinion (De Iacob, 1, 6, 26: PL 14, coll. 630-39; cf. I. Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes, II, 9th ed., Paris 1931, p. 334).

Meanwhile in the East the course of the true tradition continued through the clear testimonies of the Syro-Palestinians (St. Ephrem, Sermo de fine, 8; St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 18, 18: PG 33, 1040), of the Cappadocians (St. Basil, Hom. in Ps. 28, 8: PG 29, 300), of the Antiochenes (St. John Chrysostom, De Resurrectione, 8: PG 50, 430), to whom in the West were joined St. Hilary of Poitiers (In Mt., 5, 12: PL 13, 1088-89) and above all St. Augustine, whose limpid doctrine, contained in formulas of singular precision (De Civitate Dei, 21, 17-26: PL 41, 732-36; De haeresibus, 43: PL 42, 96), permeated all medieval eschatology and constituted the basis of the later speculations of the Scholastics.

Eschatological Origenism was condemned by the Fides Damasi (Denz-U, 16), by Pope Vigilius (Denz-U, 211), and by the ecumenical councils: Constantinople II (a. 553), III (a. 680) and Nicaea II (a. 787). The error of Arnobius (d. ca. 327), who asserted the annihilation of the damned, had no following and provoked no condemnation. When, however, the idea of the deferral of retribution to the Last Judgment spread among the Eastern dissidents, the Second Council of Lyons (a. 1274) defined that those who die in mortal sin "mox in infernum descendere" (Denz-U, 464). This doctrine was again sanctioned by Benedict XII (Denz-U, 531) and by the Council of Florence (Denz-U, 693). Many other definitions of the Church concern hell (v. Denz-U, 40, 410, 429, 835, 1290, 1526).

II. NATURE OF THE PENALTIES OF HELL

By sinning, man culpably turns away from God his ultimate end ("aversio ab incommutabili bono") and clings to a created object, from which he draws an ephemeral enjoyment ("conversio ad commutabile bonum"). To these two aspects of sin corresponds the twofold punishment of loss and of sense (cf. Sum. Theol., 1st-2nd part, q. 87, a. 4).

1. The punishment of loss (Lat. damnum = "loss," "misfortune") is the privation of the possession of God, solemnly indicated in the words "Discedite a me, maledicti" (Mt. 25:41). Other biblical texts suggest the same idea (Mt. 25:10-12; I Cor. 6:9; Apoc. 22:15), which the Fathers develop with breadth and depth (cf. St. John Chrysostom, In Mt. hom., 23, 9: PG 57, 317; St. Augustine, Enchiridion, 112: PL 40, 285). This punishment, which is as great as God ("paena damnati est infinita, quia est amissio boni infiniti": Sum. Theol., 1st-2nd part, q. 87, a. 4), constitutes essentially hell. The soul, as long as it remains in the body, is not aware of the profound capacity of its nature, because the fascination of finite things dulls the unsatisfied longing for the Infinite. At the moment of death, the spell of passing things vanishes and, through the intuition proper to spirits, it perceives clearly its relationship as a creature, which immediately provokes the irrepressible gravitation of its being toward the universal center of spirits. This innate impulse toward God, which metaphysically conditions the creaturely existence of the soul, unveils to it the immeasurable depths of its nature, which only God could fill; in the same instant it perceives that its obstinate rebellion against God will forever withdraw from its demanding hunger the satisfaction of the divine bread. Thus the most tragic divorce between God and the soul is accomplished. The eternally repudiated soul vainly tends by instinctive motion toward God, since by an immutably depraved will it hates Him and feels itself rejected by Him. This internally lacerating contradiction constitutes the essence of hell and provokes in the damned the frenzied motion of despair, which Dante powerfully staged in the tercets where he describes the disordered roaring of the "lost people" (Inf., III, 22-30).

The disordered rage of the reprobate, fed by unrepentant remorse, is the worm that does not die, the fabulous vulture that devours the reborn entrails of one who lives again in death. Tormented in the whirlwind of ever-new sufferings, the eternally exiled burst forth in wrathful revolt against God, whom they blaspheme, and in jealous hatred against all men, even their closest relatives, whom they curse (cf. Sum. Theol., 2nd-2nd part, q. 34, a. 1; 3rd part, Suppl., q. 98, a. 1-2, 5-6; Compendium Theologiae, 174; Dante, Inf., 3, 103-105). Thus, through a sequence of acts inspired by desperately impotent hatred, the damned experience with growing bitterness the hard sting of that immortal death, which constitutes the "summum malorum" (Sum. Theol., 3rd part, suppl., q. 98, a. 6, ad 3), at which the gentle soul of St. Bernard shuddered: "Horreo vermem mordacem et mortem vivacem, horreo incidere in manus mortis vivventis et vitae morientis" (De consideratione, 5, 12: PL 182, 803).

2. The punishment of sense (so called because it is produced by sensible things, which have become instruments of divine vengeance) is added to the agonizing privation of God, as its complement. It is indicated in the words of the Divine Judge: "Ite in ignem aeternum" (Mt. 25:41), in many other passages of Scripture (Mt. 8:12; Mc. 43, 47; 9, Lc. 16:28; Iud. 6) and in the constant teaching of Tradition.

The punishment of sense is the hostility of creation, which rises up against the reprobate as an effective instrument of vindictive justice. Man tends toward God, as toward the supreme good, and also tends with spontaneous impulse toward the created universe, a reflection of the divine goodness. Between these tendencies there is no incompatibility, but subordination. Man can turn toward creatures not as an end in themselves, but as a ladder to the Creator; placed before the alternative of respecting or violating this hierarchy of values, man by sinning opts for the creature, putting it in place of the Creator. At the moment of death, the impenitent one, who has overturned the divine plan, is struck by his own disorder (cf. C. Gent. 4, 146). God, rejected, withdraws; the created world, chosen instead, advances and in the crucifying finiteness of its elements confines and constrains the evil spirit.

Among these elements Scripture (Mt. 13, 4-42; 25, 41; II Pt. 2, 6; Iud. 7) and Tradition (v. above) enumerate, by preference, fire, which on account of a complex of positive data is commonly held to be real, not metaphorical (cf. A. Michel, Feu de l'enfer, in DThC, VI, coll. 1196-2225). How material fire can afflict pure spirits, such as the devil and the damned souls before the resurrection of the flesh, is certainly mysterious. St. Thomas, taking his cue from certain biblical texts (II Pt. 2, 4; Apoc. 20, 1-3; Iud. 6), held that fire, per modum alligationis, prevents, in a tormenting constraint, the free movement of the spirit, which thus falls into a new boundless anguish (De Veritate, q. 26, a. 1; C. Gent. 4, 90; Sum. Theol., 3ª, Suppl., q. 70, a. 3).

Others, insisting on the specific effect of fire, which is to burn, maintained that the fire of hell emanates qualities that are supernaturally productive of pain (Suárez, De Angelis, disp. 18, n. 14), or else are of the opinion that that fire, as an instrument in the hands of God, is elevated to produce an effect superior to its nature, in the same manner as the Sacraments, sensible rites, sanctify the soul, which is spiritual (Lessius, De perfectionibus moribusque divinis, 13, 30, 216). Whatever judgment may be reserved for these explanations, the teaching of St. Augustine is always true: « Quamvis miris tamen veris modis etiam spiritus incorporeos potest paena corporalis ignis affligere » (De Civitate Dei, 21, 10: PL 41, 724).

III. PROPERTY OF THE PENALTIES OF HELL

The punishments of hell, if they are for all unchangeable and eternal, nevertheless have a greater or lesser degree of severity, proportionate to the number and the malice of the sins.

The inequality of the punishments is affirmed by Scripture (Wis. 6:6-7; Mt. 10:15; 11:22; Rev. 18:7) and by the Fathers, whose thought St. Gregory the Great summarizes: « Quantum exigit culpa, tantum illic sentitur paena » (Dial. 4, 43: PL 77, 401). The Church has sanctioned with her infallible magisterium (in the Second Council of Lyons: « paenis tamen disparibus puniendas »; Denz-U, 464, cf. 429, 693) this truth, which is a requirement of justice (cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 3a, Suppl., q. 69, a. 5).

The unchangeability of the torments of hell was denied by Prudentius (Hymns de lumine paschali: PL 59, 828) and by some medieval theologians (Gilbert de la Porrée, Peter Lombard, Prepositinus of Cremona), who admitted a certain mitigation of them through the prayers and suffrages of the faithful. St. Thomas rejected this opinion as « praesumptuosa, utpote sanctorum dictis contraria et vana » (Sum. Theol., 3a, Suppl., q. 71, a. C). The same judgment must be given of the recent attempts of St. George Mivart (19th century) and of Alonso Getino (d. 1946) to show the punishments of hell to be tolerable or capable of mitigation.

The eternity of hell is formally asserted by Scripture (Mt. 25:46; Mk. 9:42; Rev. 14:11; 20:10) and by Tradition (see above), of which St. Augustine gathers all the elements when he affirms « multum absurdum est » (De Civitate Dei, 21, 32: PL 41, 736) to wish to exclude the eternity of hell from the Lord's phrase: « Ibunt in supplicium aeternum » (Mt. 25:46). The Church has solemnly defined this truth in the symbol Quicunque (Denz-U, 40) and in the Fourth Lateran Council (op. cit., 429). This dogma was the rock on which Origen struck and is the scandal of the unbelievers of every age (Celsus, Unitarians, liberal Protestants, rationalists).

Reason halts before this mystery of justice and limits itself to demonstrating the non-absurdity of the divine plan. Sin and punishment stand to one another as the concave and the convex; since sin has in relation to God « quamdam infinitatem » it demands an infinite punishment if not in intensity at least in duration (cf. Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 87, a. 4; 3a, Suppl., q. 99, a. 1). The fear of temporal punishment would not be an effective means against the passions, which offer an immediate enjoyment; the fear of a punishment that is distant and limited in time would always be overcome. If the punishment were not eternal, the creature would be master of its own fate and the fulfillment of the divine designs would depend on human caprice, because the creature could boast, after the rebellion of sin, of having forced God to give it one day its happiness. Thus the epilogue of history would depend on the creature and not on God.

Despite these reasons, which demonstrate the non-repugnance of the divine plan, even today, as in the past, people cry out against the unthinkable cruelty of a God breathing vengeance. In reality it is not God who takes vengeance, but it is sin, mystery of iniquity, that draws upon itself a mystery of justice. It is not God who casts into hell, but it is the sinner who knowingly and willingly enters it: « in id quod elegerunt eos expellens » (St. Augustine, Enarrat. in Ps. 5, 10: PL 36, 87). If one were to gouge out his eyes and live forever, he would be eternally blind through his own fault and God would not be cruel in not restoring his sight (cf. Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 87, a. 3; 3a, Suppl., q. 99, a. 1).

Antonio Piolanti

IV. ICONOGRAPHY

The oldest representations of Hell are merely symbolic, and despite possible relations with the Eastern, Greek and Latin traditions that described the realms of the underworld also in literature, they appear quite rarely in early Christian iconography, but always in connection with two scenes of the New Testament: the Liberation of Adam from Hell, as in the ciborium of the basilica of St. Mark, of the 5th-6th century, and the Parable of the rich man (Dives), as in a Greek Psalter of the Moscow Library, of the 9th century. Hell is indicated by an opening among rocky crags: sometimes, instead, it is identified with the figure of a prince with diabolical features and attributes.

This identification appears with particular frequency in Western art: Hell is represented as the maw of a wild beast, frightfully deformed, with fangs and sharp teeth, in a vision from above or in a lateral foreshortening (miniature of a manuscript of the Oxford Library, datable to around the year 1000). Exceptionally, dragon's feet and fangs are added to the infernal mouth, placed immediately below the throat (miniature of a medieval German Psalter, ca. 1233). This terrible animalistic representation, recalled also by the Venetian musicians who depicted Satan in the act of devouring the damned on the vault of the baptistery of Florence, had particular fortune in the Nordic countries. A miniature of a Psalter from Winchester, now in the British Museum in London, of the 12th century, plainly shows the identification of Satan's throat with the gate of Hell, placing on the maw an actual door with bolt and latches. An engraving from the lower Rhineland, from the middle of the 15th century, still recalls this theme and specifies that mouth as the entrance to the subterranean kingdom and to the dwellings of the damned.

Representations of Hell are considered "real" when the elements of punishment appear in them, in particular fire. Hell is generally thought of as a pit or a subterranean cavern, also because of the memory of the classical descriptions of Avernus. From the bottom flames rise, or else it is a torrent of fire that gushes from the foot of the Cross and flows from the wounds of Christ that fills the abyss, wrapping the damned in coils. But the variants are many. In an illuminated illustration of the parable of the rich man, in the Evangelary of the Emperor Otto at Aachen (10th century), Hell is represented as a fiery precipice, from which emerges a demonic female head, which bears written on its hair the word obyssus. At other times Hell is considered as the princely dwelling of Lucifer. Not rarely it is transformed into a patrician palace or a royal court, as is already found in an ivory of the 9th century with the scene of the Judgment (in the Museum of London). In the interior of a tower the gigantic head of Satan enthroned, who swallows the damned. The infernal character of the building is clearly indicated by the armed guards of devils that keep watch over it, and by the fortified entrance, with doors, latches, turrets, etc. In a book of prayers from the beginning of the 15th century, in the Library of London, the theme is further developed, while recollections of infernal buildings and of the diabolical citadel are still noted in Stephan Lochner. Also in the depictions of the Last Judgment various representations of Hell appear, not infrequently colored by an intense taste for the macabre and the grotesque.

The greatest representations of Hell are found, however, in Italy, where they cover entire walls. In Byzantine-style art, as at Torcello and at S. Angelo in Formis, Hell is already divided into several levels and into different sections, dedicated to individual species of the damned. They are part of the depictions of the Last Judgment; thus later that of Giotto, on the counter-facade wall of the Scrovegni chapel, in Padua, ca. 1305. But Giotto dedicates a very ample space to Hell, perhaps giving the most complete description of infernal punishments, with a richness of fantastic elaboration and with such a number of coincidences as to call to mind the Dantesque pages. He draws directly on popular tradition, perhaps availing himself of the choreography of the sacred representations, one of which, held in Florence in 1304, is recalled by Villani; it is probable that the coincidences with the first canticle of the Divine Comedy depend on the use of identical sources. In the center, at the bottom, stands Lucifer, iconographically derived from the pulpit of Pisa by Nicola Pisano. He devours the sinners and clutches two of them in his hands. He sits upon dragons with open maws that bite the damned. On the right, in the foreground, are four pits, within which naked men suffer, some headlong: in the background extends a rugged landscape, with crags and rocks, where special episodes of punishment unfold, according to the law of retaliation or of contrapasso. The sin is sometimes repeated, in an inverted and ironized situation (simony, lust, gluttony, avarice, etc.). Beside the figures martyred in various tortures, from the fiery cauldron to the gallows, appear lizards and frog-devils, which mount, torment, roast their victims on the spit or take part in the macabre representations of the sins. The humble and the powerful, indistinctly mingled in the punishment, struggle in the swamp devastated by the torrent of fire or among the rocks.

Analogous representations are found in S. Maria Maggiore at Tuscania and in the camposanto of Pisa. With the fresco of Nardo di Cione, dedicated to the Judgment, but in which Hell occupies an entire wall, of the Strozzi Chapel in S. Maria Novella in Florence (shortly after 1350), the representation of the infernal kingdom becomes, at least in Italy, the figurative commentary of the first Dantesque canticle. The subterranean world is seen as in a cut-away drawing, and the individual zones, in rings, are isolated individually, following the Dantesque account. The first 5 circles are in turn divided from the central nucleus of Hell by walls and towers, the enclosure of the city of Dis. The indifferent are thus separated from the violent, the fraudulent are received in the malebolge, where the well narrows into rocky circles. Lucifer reigns at the bottom in a frozen lake, devouring the traitors. The necessarily fragmentary vision does not lack the charm of a characterization of the landscape.

The Italian Renaissance, even in new stylistic interpretations, does not abandon the Dantesque conception, indeed avails itself of it skillfully. Suffice it to recall, with the drawings of Botticelli for the Divine Comedy, in part in the Vatican Library, the frescoes of Luca Signorelli in the cathedral of Orvieto or the boat of Charon in the Judgment of Michelangelo.

Outside Italy, among the many variations, the representations of Hell remain almost medievally chaotic, with the suggestion of fiery landscapes or of spectral skies. Of these, very important are the Flemish ones (of the Bruegels or of I. Bosch) where to the macabre, the deformed or the formless is joined a romantic sensibility for apocalyptic landscapes, sinisterly illuminated by conflagrations (v. also DEMONIO). - See plates CXVI-CXVII.

Eugenio Battisti