“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way”*…
Michelangelo Caetani’s “Cross Section of Hell,” an illustration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and part of Cornell University’s P.J. Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography (“more than 800 maps intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs – to send a message – rather than to communicate geographic information”).
An enlargeable version of the Cross Section is here; browse the full collection here.
* Robert Frost
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As we ruminate on repentance, we might note that today is the Feast Day of Lucifer– more properly, of St. Lucifer of Caligari. At least, it’s his feast day in Sardinia, where he’s venerated. Lucifer, who was a 4th century bishop fierce in his opposition to Arianism, is considered by some elsewhere to have been a stalwart (if minor) defender of the orthodoxy; but by more to have been an obnoxious fanatic.
“Lucifer” was in use at the time as a translation of the the Hebrew word, transliterated Hêlêl or Heylel (pron. as HAY-lale), which means “shining one, light-bearer.” It had been rendered in Greek as ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros), a name, literally “bringer of dawn,” for the morning star. The name “Lucifer” was introduced in St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, roughly contemporaneously with St. Lucifer. The conflation of “Lucifer” with “Satan” came later.
