Marzena Rammairone

The Divine Comedy in English

Prof. Stefania Porcelli

 

The analysis of two images of Satan (by Sandro Botticelli and Salvador Dalí) inspired by canto XXXIV of Inferno in Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

 

 

The Middle Ages played a significant role in the development of the image of Satan by his widespread depiction in various forms of art, making the image not only visual and realistic but also more widespread and omnipresent. The way mainstream Christians dealt with the idea of the Satan was influenced by how Christian writings and art has depicted the fallen angel. A combination of medieval folklore and literature, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno) but also John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Goethe’s Faust were contributory in influencing the public’s portrayal of Lucifer as a super villain, lawbreaker and utter wrongdoer in fictional texts. From the tenth century onwards, for at least half a millennium, Christianity viewed the Devil as a real thing, who existed everywhere.[1] Dante Alighieri gave a thorough description of Satan in the last canto of Inferno, which later inspired many artists, such as Sandro Botticelli or Salvatore Dali. They created paintings, illustrations and sculptures of Lucifer that generated a wide range of emotions such as: fear, consternation or even anxiety. But does Dante’s “emperor of the dolorous kingdom”[2] bring about those kinds of emotions and reactions. In my opinion he doesn’t. Quite the contrary, I suppose.

Dante’s Inferno, first part of his epic The Divine Comedy, presents Satan who, as an adversary to God, is incapacitated and confined to the pits of hell. This reflects the view on the Devil at the time, where he was often featured in medieval plays and cycles as more comedic relief and the “loser” against God.[3]

Throughout the journey through hell, it is repeatedly implied that at the end Dante will meet Satan. However, the meeting with Satan is rather anticlimactic. Instead of the clever, cunning and “tempting” Satan the modern reader is used to, the Satan shown here is nothing more than a voiceless beast. While in appearance he is certainly horrifying, there is nothing threatening about his personality. Although the reader expects Dante’s encounter with Lucifer to go beyond sadness, anguish, despair and growing cruelty, in fact, is up for a big surprise or even disappointment.

First of all, although the physical appearance of the fallen angel might look terrifying end extremely bestial at first glance, it doesn’t seem so scary after more thorough observation. Lucifer is completely isolated, trapped in a frozen lake of Cocytus from the waist down (hell being a place of darkness and ice contradicts the popular idea that it was a place of fire). He has three gigantic heads with three faces of different colors (yellow – impotence, red – ignorance, black – hate), which mirror the Trinity. As Teodolinda Barollini described it: “In spiritual terms, Lucifer is the antithesis of the Divine Trinity: Lucifer spirates death where the Trinity spirates love.”[4] He moves his enormous bat wings bringing about freezing wind that keeps the ice from melting.

Besides, “the king” of hell, although repulsive and frightful, is completely immobile, confined like a prisoner. He performs several functions, in a very mechanical and repetitive way, that make him look more like a robot that a scary monster. He mechanically bats his wings and continuously munches on three damned souls (Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius). The bloody tears that come out of his monstrous eyes also seem robotic because there is no emotion to be seen in his face (or faces in this case). Lucifer is “inanimate”, without soul, but he moves, bats his wings, drools, and chews[5]. The repetitive and ongoing movement makes Lucifer extremely predictable, monotonous but also powerless. It is obvious that he is nothing but an instrument operated by God’s hands. Lucifer is completely mute, unable to express himself in any way. He is deprived of any voice, emotion or reaction. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that Dante Alighieri presents a Satan who “appears more pathetic than terrifying.”[6]

Dante’s inspired works were very influential in visually creating the idea of a Satan in peoples’ minds. But the question remains how Dante’s depiction of a commonly feared creature inspired some artists and how accurate they were in portraying him themselves.

Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c. 1445 – May 17, 1510) was an Italian painter who belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He painted a wide range of religious subjects and also portraits. Sandro Botticelli began illustrating Dante’s Divine Comedy at the request of Lorenzo di Pier Francesco di Medici around 1490. Botticelli created 92 drawings for Divine Comedy, which “have been admired for their beauty and for their sensitive and faithful adaptation of the text.”[7] Without a doubt, they are considered masterpieces and amongst the best works of the painter. Of an initial project of 100 drawings, one for each canto of the Comedy, 92 are survived, which are currently divided between the Vatican Library (7 drawings) and the Staatliche Berlin Museum (85 drawings.).[8]

In the beginning each drawing was made with a metal point, mostly silver. It usually left clearly defined outlines if used on prepared surfaces, but Botticelli used it on vellum, which left a fainter mark. The next stage was to go over these lines with a pen and two different types of ink were used: light brown or brown iron-gall. When the miniature design was finished, a first gray-brown layer was passed through the brush, and then the image was colored.[9]

Botticelli created an illustration of Lucifer and also shed light on his geographical position in Hell.

Satan and traitors to benefactors

Source: Zeichnungen von Sandro Botticelli zu Dantes Göttlicher Komödie ; verkleinerte Nachbildungen der Originale im Kupferstich-Kabinett zu Berlin und in der Bibliothek des Vatikans ; mit einer Einleitung und der Erklärung der Darstellungg hrsg. von F. Lippermann. Berlin: G. Grote, 1921.

http://www.worldofdante.org/pop_up_query.php?dbid=I132&show=more

 

Botticelli is very thorough and detail oriented in his illustration. The artist passionately follows word for word the text reproducing what was Dante’s vision on Satan. Lucifer is pictured here with three heads (and three faces for that matter, which don’t have three different colors as Dante described it in Canto XXXIV), connected by the shoulders with six giant bat’s wing. The right wing seems to be undefined and the semicircle on the bottom of the page stands for the boreal hemisphere.

The middle head of Lucifer is gnawing on Judas Iscariot (notorious for betraying Jesus Christ) while his enormous claws grab hold of a punished sinner. That detail closely follows Dante’s description.

“In each of his mouth he was breaking a sinner

with his teeth in the manner of a scotch, so that he

made three suffer at once.

to the one in front the biting was nothing next to

the clawing, for at times the spine remained all

naked of skin.” (Divine Comedy, Canto XXXIV, 55-60)

Two remaining heads on the side crunch the legs of Cassius and Brutus who are being punished for the assassination of Julius Caesar, the founder of the Roman Empire. The image of Lucifer depicted by Botticelli and strongly inspired by Dante’s description strikes me to be frightening and repulsive. The fact that its body is covered with something that seems to be fur adds to its animalistic and monstrous look.

Another image of Satan that I chose to analyze is A Logician Devil – an illustration of Lucifer created by Salvador Dalí in 1951 for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The painting is done by the woodcut engraving technique.

A logician Devil created by Salvador Dalí in 1951

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Logician_Devil

 

 

Later, in 1957, the Italian government commissioned Salvador Dalí to create a hundred watercolors to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy, to coincide with the 700th anniversary of the famed poet’s birth.

It is apparent that Dalí’s interpretation of Lucifer differs from Dante’s description in Canto XXXIV. First of all Dalí’s prince of darkness is not a three headed creature that is chomping on three sinners like Dante’s. It does however gnaw on someone that seems to be Judas. Second of all, it is not placed in the frozen lake of Cocytus but rather in a muddy river. There are trees growing behind him, that implies rather warm climate oppose to icy cold and bitter surrounding presented in Inferno.

What is more the Satan created by Dali is lacking wings and colossal dimensions but has a bone-like structure projecting from his skull (which is not portrayed in Dante’s description), which cracks his skull from the front to the back.

And last but not least Dali’s Satan looks more like a worn out, debilitated and depleted humanlike creature instead of a robotic monster performing repeated actions. It seems lifeless and still and the only act of mobility that can be spotted in the whole image is actually Dante and Virgil trying to get past him.

When we think of Satan as the king of darkness, our minds get filled with images of a monstrous satanic figure other beastly devils that roam around torturing punished sinners, who in turn cry out with never ending pain, regret and no hope. The same emotions are generated when we look at many popular works of art that portray that infamous figure. That perception of the fallen angel changes when we read Inferno, the last canto in particular, where Dante Alighieri describes in detail the emperor of a dolorous kingdom. That description became an inspiration for numerous artists to portray Lucifer. Some of them are more accurate than others taking many details from Dante’s text into consideration. There is probably no right approach to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy and the images he created and presented  using a written word. But without a shadow of a doubt, in the first two centuries of the book’s history alone, there were many outstanding illustrators that changed Dante’s word into an image. I truly believe that in the years to follow, many more artists will be added to that group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Wernick, Robert. “Who the Devil Is the Devil?” Smithsonian, 30.7, Oct, 1999, p.2

[2] Alighieri, Dante, Edited and Translated by Robert M. Durling, The Divine Comedy, Volume I, Inferno, Oxford University Press, New York 1996 p.535

[3] Poole, W. Scott. “Satan in America: The Devil We Know”. 2009. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, p.10

[4] https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-34/

[5] https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-34/

[6] Russell, Jeffrey Burton, The Devil : perceptions of evil from antiquity to primitive Christianity, Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1977, p.97

 

[7] Watts, Barbara J. (1995). “Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s “Inferno”: Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design”, p.164

[8] Marmor, M.From Purgatory to the “Primavera”: some observations on Botticelli and Dante, Atibus et Historiae, vol. 24, 2003, pp. 199-212

[9] Oltrogge D., Fush R. and Hahn O.,Finito and No finite drawing and painting techniques in Botticelli’s Divine Comedy, in Sandro Botticelli: The Drawings for Dante’s Divine Comedy, 2000