London Conference: The Place of Hell. Topographies, Structures, Genealogies
Organised by Dionysios Stathakopoulos and Rembrandt Duits
Held at King’s College, London and The Warburg Institute on 31 May-1 June 2013
This conference is part of the Leverhulme International Network Project Damned in Hell in
the Frescoes of Venetian-Dominated Crete (13th- 17th centuries) managed by Dr Angeliki
Lymberopoulou (The Open University) and Prof. Vasiliki Tsamakda (The Johannes Gutenberg
University Mainz).
See www.open.ac.uk/arts/damned-in-hell/conferences.shtml for details.
For practical information, please contact Dr Diana Newall: [email protected]
There is no fee for attendance but registration is required owing to the limited number of
available seats.
To register, go to the following link and follow the instructions. If you have any problems
please contact Diana Newall:
http://theplaceofhell.eventbrite.co.uk/#
Conference Aims and Themes
A belief in Hell has been a staple of Christian thought from the earliest period of this
religion. The depiction of Hell and its denizens – the devil, demons and the punished sinners
– has an equally long history going back to at least the sixth century. From the eleventh
century onwards, images of Hell become proliferate and more detailed in their presentation
of the damned and their torments – in parallel to such texts as the popular Apocalypse of
the Virgin. Artists come up with different solutions in picturing the various torments
inflicted upon the sinners as well as the places where these torments take place. In the art
of the late Byzantine period and the late medieval west, the various figures of the damned
are presented with inscriptions detailing the crimes and sins for which they are being
punished. In western Europe, literary texts add detail to the vision of Hell as well, starting
with the 11th-century Vision of Tondal and culminating in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The
images, as well as the texts that we assume they are illustrating, offer a rich field for
research. Questions of iconography as well as the exploration of social meanings attached to
these powerful representations present themselves. The exploration of developments
within the body of texts on and depictions of Hell can be particularly fruitful. The aim of this
conference is to explore the place Hell occupied within society and art as well as the way
Hell was envisaged as a physical place.
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Programme
Friday 31 May (King’s College)
Chair:
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
10.00
Opening and introduction to the Leverhulme project
10.30
Maria Vassilaki (University of Thessaly): Damned in Hell Revisited
11.10
Coffee
Session I: Texts
Chair:
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
11.40
Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe (King’s College, London): Womb, Belly, and Tomb. The Look
and Feel of Hell in early Christian Descent Stories
12.20
Asya Bereznyak (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Hellish Rhetoric and Rhetoric of
Hell. Eastern and Western Missionary Representations, Uses and Appropriations of
Hell
13.00
Lunch
Chair:
Rembrandt Duits
14.00
Luigi Silvano (University of Rome La Sapienza): Betwixt Hell and Heaven. The
Strange Case of Philentolos
14.40
Peter Tóth (Warburg Institute): ‘...And SHE descended into Hell.’ An Unknown Latin
Translation of the Greek Apocalypse of the Virgin
15.20
Tea
15.40
Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute): The Physicality of Dante’s Souls in Hell
16.20
Theresa Holler (Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence): Place of No Return. Dante’s
devilish Landscape and the Artistic Eye
17.00
Conclusion
Reception and dinner for Leverhulme Project team-members and conference speakers
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Saturday 1 June (The Warburg Institute)
Session II: Images
Chair:
Liz James
10.10
Dimitra Mastoraki (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne): Judas in Hell. The
Iconography and Didactic Power of the Image in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine
Art. Similarities and Differences with the Western Iconography
10.50
Ioanna Rapti (King’s College, London): Satan’s Baby and Hell’s Keepers. Satan and
Companions in Scenes related to Christ’s Victory over Hell
11.30
Coffee
11.50
Dimitra Kotoula (International Centre for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies):
Strategies for Salvation. Structuring and Populating Hell in Byzantine Private Burial
Chapels (13th -15th centuries)
12.30
Jenny Albani (Open University of Greece): Ει δε κακά εργάζη, φοβήθητι τον Κριτήν.
Sins and Punishments in a Representation of the Last Judgment in the Church of St.
John at Axos, Crete
13.10
Lunch
Chair:
Leslie Brubaker
14.10
Chiara Franceschini (Warburg Institute): Hell in Liguria. Processions of the Damned
in late medieval Frescoes (title to be confirmed)
14.50
Brendan Cassidy (University of St Andrews): Consigning Enemies to Hell: Images of
Revenge & Defamation in Italian Art
15.30
tea
16.00
Allie Terry Fritsch (Bowling Green State University): Hell on Earth. Criminal Viewers
in the Chapel of the Magdalene in Florence
16.40
Closing remarks
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Abstracts
Maria Vassilaki, Damned In Hell Revisited
A long time has passed since I published my first paper on the representation of the
Damned in Hell in Cretan churches, focusing on the 13th-15th centuries. My principal aim
was to explore gender issues and, in particular, to seek information on the status of women
in Venetian Crete. It became obvious to me that the sins for which women are punished in
hell are primarily of a social and moral nature, and, consequently, I became more interested
in understanding the social attitudes towards women which prevailed at the time.
The passage of time brings the benefit of detachment, which has led me to revisit this
subject in an effort to pose a series of multi-disciplinary questions of a historical,
anthropological and art-historical nature:
1.
Are the surviving documents from Venetian Crete consistent with the visual
representation of the Damned in Hell in Cretan churches?
2.
Since the representation of the Damned in Hell is based on early Christian texts –
such as the Apocalypse of the Virgin, the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of
Paul – does it follow iconographic patterns that remain unchanged through the
ages? If not, what changes can we detect?
3.
What evidence of western influences do we find in the representation of the
Damned in Hell in the churches of Venetian-held Crete? Can we detect the influence
of texts such as Dante’s Divine Comedy? Are some of these influences of a purely
artistic nature?
Asya Bereznyak, ‘Hellish Rhetoric and Rhetoric of Hell: Eastern and Western
Missionary Representations, Uses and Appropriations of Hell’
Hell – as a place, as a concept, as a place of sinners and unbelievers – is usually examined in
the context of the later Middle Ages. Indeed, the notion of Hell as we know it was not yet
fully formed in the earlier Middle Ages - yet I would argue that it was precisely in that period
when the seeds of profound differences between Eastern and Western notions of Hell were
sown. My paper will therefore address the origins and formation of the different notions of
Hell in the Earlier Middle Ages (9th-11th centuries). I would argue that in order to
understand late medieval concepts of Hell as a place and its functions in believers’
worldviews, we must first examine what shaped these notions and what accounts for the
differences between Eastern and Western ideas of Hell.
To understand what shaped the notions of Hell, we must turn to missionary attitudes, and
examine the profound influence of missionary rhetoric on the place Hell had in the faith of
Eastern and Western Christians. By looking at the manner in which Eastern and Western
missionaries understood Hell and presented it to neophytes, and by analysing the
differences in their approaches, this paper will attempt to shed a new light on the formation
of the later notions of Hell. It will also be suggested that it was the overall difference of
attitude of the Byzantine and Western missionaries to the missionary endeavour that
accounts for the different manner in which they chose to use the notions of Hell, and that
these differences had, in turn, a vast influence on the manner in which Hell was conceived
of during the later Middle Ages.
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Luigi Silvano, Betwixt Hell and Heaven: the strange case of Philentolos
In 1945 F. Halkin published a short text pertaining to the genre of the historiai psychopheleis
(“edifying tales”) that narrates the story of Philentolos, a rich man from Cyprus who was at
the same time both a relentless benefactor and almsgiver, and an unrepented fornicator.
When he died in old age, a dispute arose among the local clergy whether he should have
been saved due to his philanthopy, or damned due to his reiterated sins; as the bishops and
monks were unable to find an answer, they asked a sacred hermit for advice. The hermit
was sent a vision in which he saw Philentolos physically standing in a place in the middle
between the beauties of heaven and the flames of hell, being unharmed by the latter, but
also banned from the former. As Philentolos was complaining of his own fate, an angel came
and explained to him the reasons for such an eternal chastisement.
This vision provides an unicum in Byzantine depictions of the other world, and has
apparently no strict parallels also in Latin theological thought: the ”unmarked” place where
Philentolos is standing – apparently alone – does not resemble either Purgatory or the socalled limbus puerorum. Instead, as Costas Kyrris first noticed, it may resemble the Al ‘Araf
(“diaphragm”) mentioned in the Quran, a zone reputed to contain the souls of those dead
people who did not deserve either Paradise or Hell.
My paper will first give a survey of the several extant versions of the text (and especially
those recorded in BHG 1322x-y, so far unpublished, of which I am preparing an edition); I
will then attempt to sketch a reconsideration of the meaning of this story, its background,
and its diffusion, addressing issues such as possible sources and parallels in the literary and
theological writings of the Medieval Eastern and Western Mediterranean.
Peter Tóth, ‘“...And SHE descended into Hell” An Unknown Latin Translation of the
Greek Apocalypse of the Virgin
The most important Christian accounts of and „guides” to the netherworld before Dante’s
Divina Commedia were furnished by different apocryphal visions attributed to such
authorities of Christianity as the Apostle Paul or different saints and holy men from
Macarius of Egypt to St. Patrick or the Byzantine Basil the Younger. Of all these descriptions
of the hell and the fate of the dead it was the so-called Apocalypse of Paul which was
regarded as the earliest and probably the most popular and authoritative version serving as
a literary model and also as a framework for later reworkings and discussions. In addition to
this widely known apocryphon, however, there existed another even more detailed
visionary description of the Christian hell which was placed in the framework of a visit of the
Holy Virgin to the netherwold. In the course of this narrative the Virgin, just like Paul in the
Apocalypse under his name, is guided in her travels throughout hell by the Archangel
Michael and she is also introduced to the different torments of hell which are even more
elaborated here than in the earlier Pauline account. However, there is an important element
in the Virgin’s visit to the hell which separates it from the Apocalypse of Paul, that – as an
ultimate proof of the Virgin’s parrhesia to Christ – in order to provide some comfort for the
suffering sinners her intercession has persuaded Christ to suspend the torments of hell for
the period between the resurrection and Pentecost.
This characteristically Byzantine description of the netherworld which was so wide-spread
and popular in the Greek as well as in the Slavonic tradition is usually considered to be
completely unknown in the Western tradition. However, in two late fourteenth century
manuscripts I managed to find a complete but still unrecorded Latin translation of the
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Virgin’s descent to the hell added to a particular version of the Apocalypse of Paul. The
present paper aims at a presentation of the Latin text of the Virgin’s Apocalypse considering
the different characteristics of the language of the translation and thus trying to formulate
some conclusions about the possible date and purpose of the Latin version of this medieval
Greek apocryphon.
Alessandro Scafi, ‘The Physicality of Dante’s souls in Hell’
What is going to happen to the individual after death? In the Middle Ages, Dante Alighieri
gave a poetic answer to a fundamental question that humans have always asked. In his
view, as soon as the soul separates from its earthly body and reaches the otherworld, it
develops in a body of air. Such a shade, deformed in hell, only distorted in purgatory,
perfected in heaven, is able to carry the identity of the individual and to express sensitive
faculties. Dante’s understanding of the human being and of personal identity provides an
original vision that draws both on the classical concept of shade and the Christian
expectation of the resurrection of the body.
Theresa Holler, ‘Place of No Return Dante’s Devilish Landscape and the Artistic Eye’
In the Comedy, the author’s spatial conception of the afterworld becomes a realistic
landscape not only for the pilgrim Dante but also for the reader. His journey through the
literary space finds its counterpart in a new artistic approach to visualize the other world.
Depictions of hell in scenes of the Last Judgment shift from a chaotic space or an artificial
one created by registers to an elaborated locus, defined by rocks. Following the circulation
of the Comedy, this parallel development presents itself in Florentine and Tuscan art as well
as in northern Italy, while we find little of this development north of the Alps. Dante as a
literary source serves and stimulates artists to experiment with the conception of space and
gives them a textual imagination for their own pictorial images.
In my paper I would like to emphasize both how this new artistic invention in trecento art
adopted this poetological concept, combining it with theological thought, and how Dante
himself creates this physical world. Matters of perspective and “humanization” of the
afterlife will be considered in the text as well as in the images.
Dimitra Mastoraki, ‘Judas in Hell: The iconography and the didactic power of the
image in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art. Similarities and differences with the
western iconography’
Judas Iscariot the perfidious disciple occupies an almost permanent place in the Byzantine
representations of Hell. In the frame of this paper we will try to examine these images of the
Judas afterlife damnation in relation with the texts and also with the western medieval
iconography in order to point out, through the differences and the eventual similarities the
special features of the Byzantine iconography of the theme.
In the most of images the Devil depicted as an old bearded man mounting a monster holds a
small figure of a naked child on his lap that in some late Cretan frescoes is identified with
Judas. It is evident that Judas is placed under the protection of the Hell’s Prince. The idea
seems to be stressed of the Saint Johns Theologian’s church in the Cretan village Asphentiles
(second half of 14th c.) where Satan and Judas are stroking each other cheeks tenderly as a
depraved replica of the Virgin Glykophiloussa’s image. The rare representations that deviate
from the dominant iconographic model in which Iscariot, weaned from the Satan’s
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protective bosom, floats in the pool of fire with the other sinners are of special interest. For
instance, we can mention the Karşi kilise fresco (Cappadocia, 1212) where Judas assumes
the role of the guardian angel for a special category of renegades or the Kremikovci church’s
fresco (Bulgaria, end of 15th c.) where he floats in the fire next to some illustrious
heresiarchs. Furthermore, special attention will be turned to some details as the one of the
string around his neck in the Karşi kilise that implicates his crime of suicide and gets this
image close to several representations of the damned created in the Byzantine periphery or
in a monastic environment in which the imposed punishment is in accordance with the
committed crime.
Afterwards, it is important to considerate the edifying function of the Judas’s images in Hell
as a part of the moralizing rhetoric of the Church. The comfortable bosom of Devil may
assure him a privileged place in Hell but it definitely deprives him from the eternal divine
light. Moreover the constant warnings of the Church Fathers about the damnation of all
Judas’s imitators and also the study of the epigraphic evidence of Christian tombs where we
find the curse of Judas addressed to the tomb profaners reinforces the opinion that the end
of Iscariot serves as a warning for the impious about their destiny afterlife. In other cases
can be targeted a special group of sinners as it is the case of the the Karşi kilise fresco where
the indication of the suicide as the principal reason of Judas’s damnation constitutes an
indirect warning to all those who search by the suicide to avoid the human and divine justice
contesting that way the salutary grace of God.
In conclusion it becomes obvious that the Iscariot’s figure raised to a symbol of all the
rebellious voices against the Christian authority participates paradoxically, by his images in
Hell, in its moralizing rhetoric. The subversive figure of Judas seems to be definitely tamed
by the religious authority who transforms him in an ultimate defender of the faith that he
has renounced.
Dimitra Kotoula, ‘Strategies for salvation: structuring and populating Hell in
Byzantine private burial chapels (13th -15th c.)’
The aim of this paper is to examine representations of Hell in burial chapels that were
founded between the 13th and the 15th centuries to function as places of burial and later
commemoration. Byzantine and post-Byzantine material will be discussed in juxtaposition to
similar imagery in the West. The analysis will focus on:
·
the place of the scene in the layout and the iconographic programme of these
buildings
·
specific details in the iconography of the scenes, the structure of Hell as a physical
place as well as the picturing of the damned and their various torments. What
solutions did the artists invent to depict a theme described in various apocalyptic
texts in the East and the West of which, however, we lack a standard reference
textual source?
The purpose of this twofold analysis is to reveal the diverse layers of meaning that seem to
permeate the scene as well as its function and symbolism in the burial chapel. How far
punishment the main message of the scene was turned into a message of salvation in the
iconography of specific variations? To what extent the social status and the religious and
cultural background of the interred founders is reflected in the scenes? The examination of
the issue aims to bring out the dynamism, the versatile ideas behind and the broader impact
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of this almost protean scene that seems to have been used, in some cases, as a unique tool
of visual propaganda.
Jenny Albani, ‘Ει δε κακά εργάζη, φοβήθητι τον Κριτήν. Sins and Punishments in a
Representation of the Last Judgment in the Church of St. John at Axos, Crete’
Axos is a village of the Mylopotamos district, in the prefecture of Rethymnon on Crete. The
Church of St. John the Baptist, situated in the cemetery of the village, is a single-aisle, barrelvaulted building, 10 m long and 5.10 m wide. Its painted decoration can be dated on stylistic
criteria to around 1400. As is the norm in Cretan Late Byzantine churches, there is a multi
register composition of the Last Judgment in the west part of the nave.
In the bottom register of the western wall, to the right of the entrance door is the
representation of Hell, which displays the damnation of the Sinners. Hell comprises 17
registers framed by red bands, on which inscriptions in white identify the subjects. The
individual punishments of the damned refer to certain culpable sins that can give us an
insight to the moral code of the middle Ages in Venetian Crete.
It is well known that during its long history the Byzantine Empire was a society in which land
and rural social relations were of great importance. Therefore, alongside the rural laws, the
representation of the individual punishments of sinners in Hell, which are found only in
churches of rural and monastic communities and not of urban centers, aimed, by visual
means, to keep alive the rural laws and the moral standards in the every day life of the
parish congregation, warning wrong-doers of their torments after death, and calming the
wronged and the weak with the promise of the future administration of Justice.
Brendan Cassidy, ‘Consigning Enemies to Hell: Images of Revenge & Defamation in
Italian Art’
This paper will examine images of hell in Italian Late-Medieval & Renaissance Art in which
there are identifiable individuals or types of individual and consider the reasons why the
artists and/or patrons thought they were suitable candidates for damnation.
Allie Terry-Fritsch, ‘Hell on Earth: Criminal Viewers in the Chapel of the Magdalene
in Florence’
The tormented figures relegated to the fiery pits of Hell in Giotto’s Last Judgment in the
Arena Chapel, c. 1305, once served as key references for late medieval and early modern
beholders. As Andrew Ladis pointed out, the positions and gestures of these condemned
souls point to the wit of Giotto, who knew how to inspire both terror and laughter from his
audience. One can well imagine the patron, Enrico Scrovegni, taking solace in his portrayal
on the side of Paradiso, away from the endless mockery of the sinners by rogue devils in the
Inferno. Other visitors to the Arena Chapel looking upon the scene were invited to ridicule
the condemned in hell and to laugh at their fates, since it was understood that their physical
predicaments were a reflection of their sullied souls.
Yet, Giotto painted another, more pressing scene of judgment, one that was looked upon by
those very individuals who knew that life was near an end—individuals who had been
convicted of crimes considered so heinous, that only the punishment of death would serve
to cleanse the community of the crime committed. The scene, painted in the 1330s, is
located within the Chapel dedicated to the Magdalene within the Palazzo del Podestà in
Florence (the building now generally known as the Bargello). Connected to a series of rooms
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dedicated to criminal justice, including the courtroom and deliberation chambers of the
Podestà, or chief magistrate of Florence, the Chapel was used by convicted criminals and
provided a space for the intense somatic exertion and spiritual reflection of the condemned
in the hours leading up to penal justice.
This paper examines the frescoes through the identity position of a late medieval criminal
and seeks to understand the spiritual and judicial message of the pictorial cycle for this
fourteenth-century viewing audience. The decoration is anchored through opposing scenes
of Paradise with Christ in Judgment and Hell, while scenes from the life and legend of the
Magdalene are situated across from scenes of St. John the Baptist. As this paper shall argue,
the thematic focus on judgment and redemption within the pictorial cycle created a
penitential visual narrative that was reinforced through the bodily engagement of the
criminal in the act of penance itself. The frescoes not only served as illustrations of saintly
deeds, but served as visual stimuli for the construction of the criminal’s assumed identity
both within the chapel and beyond its doors, during the procession to the site of justice.
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