Inferno, IV, 94-114. “Venimmo al piè d’un nobile castello, – sette volte cerchiato d’alte mura – difeso intorno d’un bel fiumicello.”
Pencil and watercolour. 44,5x 64,5. 12/2020

In the sixth illustration Dante and Virgil meet the spirits of Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan.We’re in Limbo, the last “embankment” before the chasm. The scene is still in the light thanks to a bonfire. We recognize Homer, thanks to the symbolic sword that Dante attributes to him. With Homer I imagined Lucano, while with Dante we see Virgil and Horace from behind, Ovid in front. The Perspective is from above, embracing much of the Castle, which I thought octagonal to “compensate” the massive circle of the seven walls. Due to the long perspective I gave up drawing the lawn inside the castle, with the large crowd of heroes imagined by Dante. I replaced the Dante’s scene with seven monoliths, symbolically vertical lines; two monoliths are “historiate” with hints of Homerian poems. I painted a less defined pencil than usual and it wasn’t a good idea.