Limbo a Roma
24 in x 24 in, oil on canvas, 2023.
This painting intends both to summarize and adapt the writing and events of Cantos IV and V of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and encourages a feeling of weightlessness and surreality while also foreshadowing subsequent events in the story. The fragmented scene includes familiar imagery associated with Dante and Gustave Dore’s depiction of the First Circle of Hell (Limbo). Dante personifies the Catholic idea of Limbo and denotes it as the first circle, located across the river Acheron. Here he describes the residence of unbaptized and “virtuous pagans” individuals who are often depicted as possessing noble qualities and virtues despite not adhering to the Christian faith.
This painting offers a new perspective/retelling of the story by altering the location, timeline, and some of the persons involved, which deviates from the canonical events in Canto IV-V. For instance, the Trevi Fountain of Rome serves as the backdrop for this piece, hence its title Limbo a Roma, or “Limbo in Rome”, however, many of the figures have been changed to echo historical representations of people who are mentioned or plausibly could have inhabited this world.
Oceanus, Titan son of Uranus and Gaia, is the central figure of the Trevi Fountain. This figure has been changed and is inspired by Dore’s illustration of the Cretan King Minos. In the Inferno, Minos determined which of the Nine Circles of Hell a soul would be sent to by wrapping his monstrous tail around his body the number of times correlated to the designated circle. In this painting, Minos’ twice-wrapped tale indicates that the soul in front of him has been consigned to the second circle, Lust. This theme is further expanded on by the inclusion of the top right figures of Paola and Francesca, two prominent figures in Canto V, as well as in art history. Here, the tragic tale of the two adulterous lovers is focused on the undescribed events following their immediate judgment. In this version, they are encapsulated and whisked away with Paolo reaching out his hand in a last attempt to save himself and his lover.
In Canto IV, Dante encounters ancient poets and philosophers such as Homer, Ovid, Lucan, Horace, Aristotle, Socrates, Diogenes, Democritus, and more. Therefore, some of the original figures of the Trevi Fountain have been revised to include some of these figures and others not mentioned in the Canto, most of which use historic paintings and sculptures as reference photos for the depictions.
This scene includes crashing waves in the foreground, symbolic of both the original idea of the “Taming of the Waters” of the Trevi fountain and the River Acheron in the Inferno.
“People were there with solemn eyes and slow,
Of great authority in their countenance;
They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.
Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side
Into an opening luminous and lofty,
So that they all of them were visible.
There opposite, upon the green enamel,
Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,
Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted”
Inferno, Canto IV, lines 112-120, Longfellow translation.