Eating yourself; what medieval art can tell us about hell and the people in it
"Contrapasso"; the medieval world's way of saying, you get what you deserve.
“Contrapasso”: sin is eating yourself
How did we get the idea that in hell the punishment “fits the crime”? So firmly is this idea planted in the Christian consciousness that it still turns up in popular culture, from the Twilight Zone to the Simpsons.
Why are these figures, despairing at the Last Judgment at the moment of their rejection by Christ, biting or eating their own bodies?
In this post, we’re going to investigate one of the more uncomfortable theological concepts as it is depicted in medieval art, specifically in this great painting of the Last Judgment by Fra Angelico, which I was able to visit a couple of years ago at the Museum of San Marco.
It’s one of the more disturbing images in Christian art: why are the damned so often depicted as eating or biting their own limbs and bodies?
The gruesome imagery of damned souls chewing their own flesh served to literally embody the concept of contrapasso, an Italian term meaning “counter-suffering.”
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