DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7597#0410
■CHAP. VI.]
BACCIO BALDINJ.
373
LALVNA E PI AN ETA FE/MNINOPOSTO NEPRIA\0 CIELO FREDA-r
E^AMA TRAL/AONDO ^VPERIORE ET LOl NFEPJORE Ar\ALAGEO
2A PARTi EN E DlfACC/lA TON PA DlZTvFAK /^ESANA /At TALLI
MPI^EIONI LAFREA 0ETENP1 E LV E P\NO D EG LIE LE r Tl LAT\
ONLAHORAPR1/AA-8 \<IZ Z ELA2VA NOTTE EqVELLADELVE
\p\\CO AV\RTE AVNA20LA AblTAClOl IE ELCHANCHCRO PRE220A
The engraving now about to be described, if admitted to be the
work of Baldini, (and it certainly bears every appearance of having
been executed by the same hand that engraved the planets above
described) furnishes a justification of the opinion already given;
that Vasari's assertion, that all Baldini's plates were engraved
from the designs of Botticelli, is not to be taken in a strictly literal
sense.
This curious print is no other than a copy of the picture repre-
senting Hell, executed in fresco, in the fourteenth century, by
Bernardo Orcagna, in the Campo Santo of Pisa; and still in
existence, although injured by retouching. The painter is said to
have taken for his model the description of Dante.
A large hideous figure of Lucifer, having three faces, with the
three mouths of which he is devouring human creatures, forms the
principal object, in the centre of the composition. He has another
face, with a mouth, at the bottom of the abdomen, out of which a
minor devil is pulling the undigested body of Simon Magus, whose
name, in characters reversed, is inscribed on a label. He grasps
two other men in his hands, who, at the same time, are bitten by
two serpents which are twisted round his arms. Seven more un-
happy criminals with caps on their heads, are within the grasp
of the large claws with which he is provided instead of feet. The
names of Nebuchadnesar, Julian the Apostate, and Attila—and
another name which I cannot satisfactorily decipher—are inscribed
in small characters on four of the caps. The remainder of the com-
position is intersected by three horizontal divisions, so as to form
four separate plains or friezes. In the bottom division, on the left,
BACCIO BALDINJ.
373
LALVNA E PI AN ETA FE/MNINOPOSTO NEPRIA\0 CIELO FREDA-r
E^AMA TRAL/AONDO ^VPERIORE ET LOl NFEPJORE Ar\ALAGEO
2A PARTi EN E DlfACC/lA TON PA DlZTvFAK /^ESANA /At TALLI
MPI^EIONI LAFREA 0ETENP1 E LV E P\NO D EG LIE LE r Tl LAT\
ONLAHORAPR1/AA-8 \<IZ Z ELA2VA NOTTE EqVELLADELVE
\p\\CO AV\RTE AVNA20LA AblTAClOl IE ELCHANCHCRO PRE220A
The engraving now about to be described, if admitted to be the
work of Baldini, (and it certainly bears every appearance of having
been executed by the same hand that engraved the planets above
described) furnishes a justification of the opinion already given;
that Vasari's assertion, that all Baldini's plates were engraved
from the designs of Botticelli, is not to be taken in a strictly literal
sense.
This curious print is no other than a copy of the picture repre-
senting Hell, executed in fresco, in the fourteenth century, by
Bernardo Orcagna, in the Campo Santo of Pisa; and still in
existence, although injured by retouching. The painter is said to
have taken for his model the description of Dante.
A large hideous figure of Lucifer, having three faces, with the
three mouths of which he is devouring human creatures, forms the
principal object, in the centre of the composition. He has another
face, with a mouth, at the bottom of the abdomen, out of which a
minor devil is pulling the undigested body of Simon Magus, whose
name, in characters reversed, is inscribed on a label. He grasps
two other men in his hands, who, at the same time, are bitten by
two serpents which are twisted round his arms. Seven more un-
happy criminals with caps on their heads, are within the grasp
of the large claws with which he is provided instead of feet. The
names of Nebuchadnesar, Julian the Apostate, and Attila—and
another name which I cannot satisfactorily decipher—are inscribed
in small characters on four of the caps. The remainder of the com-
position is intersected by three horizontal divisions, so as to form
four separate plains or friezes. In the bottom division, on the left,