The Map of Hell

c. 1480–95

Silverpoint, pen and ink, and colour on parchment · Vatican Apostolic Library

The opening sheet of Botticelli’s illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy, made for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. It is one of the few sheets he finished in colour.

Hell is a giant funnel of circular ledges crowded with tiny figures.
Most of the cycle stayed as line drawing; this sheet is coloured.
Bought in 1650 for Queen Christina of Sweden; most of the other sheets are in Berlin.
Dante borrows freely from Greek myth: Charon, Minos and Cerberus all work in his hell.

Dante’s Christian hell keeps the furniture of the classical underworld, which is why it belongs in a guide to myth.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain