Kris Leliel

𝙳𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎 𝙰𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚒𝚎𝚛𝚒, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚢 (𝟷𝟹𝟶𝟾-𝟷𝟹𝟸𝟶) 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚘: 𝙲𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝙸𝙸𝙸

MONUMENT TO DANTE (1865): Piazza Santa Croce, Florence, Italy.

In Hell there grew a Judas Tree

Where Judas hanged and died

Because he could not bear to see

His master crucified

Our Lord descended into Hell

And found his Judas there

For ever hanging on the tree

Grown from his own despair

So Jesus cut his Judas down

And took him in his arms

“It was for this I came” he said

“And not to do you harm

My Father gave me twelve good men

And all of them I kept

Though one betrayed and one denied

Some fled and others slept

In three days’ time I must return

To make the others glad

But first I had to come to Hell

And share the death you had

My tree will grow in place of yours

Its roots lie here as well

There is no final victory

Without this soul from Hell”

So when we all condemned him

As of every traitor worst

Remember that of all his men

Our Lord forgave him first

- The Judas Tree, D. Ruth Etchells

The Vision of Hell by Dante Alighieri, illustrated by Gustav Dore, 1892

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) “Dante and Virgil” (1850) Oil on canvas Academicism Located in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

This painting was inspired by a short scene from the Dante’s “Inferno,” set in the eighth circle of Hell (the circle for falsifiers and counterfeiters), where Dante, accompanied by Virgil, watches a fight between two damned souls: Capocchio, a heretic and alchemist is attacked and bitten on the neck by Gianni Schicchi who had usurped the identity of a dead man in order to fraudulently claim his inheritance.