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The Devil
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Showcase 3

THE DEVIL. The third showcase aims to show different representations of devils in time and space. Despite the obvious abrasion, it is possible to admire the appearance of Lucifer in Manuscript 1102 (copy of the original) written in the fourteenth century. The same dark, hairy and colossal body, surmounted by two large bat wings, was portrayed by the French painter Gustave Doré in his illustrated version of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia; this depiction and the previous one are related to Inferno’s XXXIV canto, when Dante and Virgil finally meet the majestic figure of Satan stuck in the frozen lake of Cocytus. Last but not least, the Bibliotheca diabolica displays twelve pictures of the devil in black and white, according to different concepts and interpretations throughout countries and centuries.

Bibliotheca diabolica : being a choice selection of the most valuable books relating to the devil …

Broadway, 1874

 RARI I.6.11

Omnipresent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – a time of religious reform, warfare, and religious persecution – the devil haunted the minds of Christians in those two centuries as never before or since. Satan could raise storms, create illusions, and assume physical forms of both animals and humans. He was also the power behind legions of his human agents such as witches, warlords, and wizards. Surprisingly, there are few bibliographies of books about the devil. With nearly 400 books on the subject arranged chronologically, this text is the most comprehensive bibliography, including twelve black-and-white images of devils throughout the centuries.

DANTE ALIGHIERI

The Comedy

14th century

Ms. 1102

In the miniature of the XXXIV canto, Satan is represented with a colossal, hairy and dark body, with clawed feet, membranous wings, which here are six, and whose incessant movement freezes Cocytus, the lake of the Underworld. That he has three faces and three jaws, with which he crushes Judas, Brutus and Cassius, we cannot see because of the usual abrasion suffered by the great diabolical figures.

DANTE ALIGHIERI

The Divine Comedy

Milan, 1887

B.VIII.9

Edition of the Comedy by Dante Alighieri with illustrations by Gustavo Dorè, French painter and engraver. In the XXXIV canto, Satan is represented with a dark and hairy body, stuck in the frozen lake of Cocytus together with the souls of the traitors.