The Greek song tells of a lover’s despair, describing the doorstep of their beloved as at the same time the best and the worst place for them to be in this life. To convey the powerful feelings, the songwriter borrows the imagery of Paradise and Hell, the Christian account of the permanent post-mortem destinations of the human soul.2 This imagery, still an important part of Western cultural and religious baggage today, has fascinated people over the centuries since the emergence of the Christian faith. This publication explores a significant part of that fascination, pertaining to the Christian place of eternal punishment for the souls of sinners: Hell.

A single-nave church.

The exterior is plastered, with the carved-stone frame of the western entrance and the lateral windows left exposed. The church does not have an exterior roof cover. There is a single entrance in the centre of the west wall, with a framed pointed-arch niche in the exterior wall above the lintel. Modern windows have been inserted in the centre of the north and south walls.

The interior is covered by a pointed barrel vault with two transverse arches. Nave and sanctuary are separated by a modern wooden iconostasis.

The wall paintings have suffered extensive damage, but the surviving parts are clearly legible.

Athanasios Semoglou examines the role of sponsorship and its influence on the iconographical depiction in Byzantine (Greek) Macedonia, arguing that donors affect the use and character of the monument chosen as their burial place. Semoglou vividly demonstrates the connection between the iconography of Hell and the hopes of the faithful for eternal life, which consists a strong motivation for donors to commission images of the Last Judgement. According to the author, the influence of sponsorship on the iconography of Hell can be detected in the illustration of parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), the earliest example of which is found in the Church of Saint Stephen in Kastoria, dated to the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century. Furthermore, the author asserts that during the middle Byzantine period two major changes occurred that led to the articulation of the dipole between sin/punishment and virtue/reward, the first being the consolidation of the Last Judgement in the narthex and the second its vertical alignment, both dominant characteristics in its later representations.

Dionysios Stathakopoulos’ chapter is divided in two parts. In the first he presents the textual sources that have had a seminal influence on the establishment of a visual vocabulary of transgressions that appear in depictions of Hell in monumental painting. He focuses on the development of ideas of punishment in the afterlife, tracing their origins from the Old and the New Testament and apocryphal texts to late Byzantine theology, which were popular in shaping ideas on punishment. Since, however, they do not always assist our understanding of the iconography of Hell, as this also reflects the social preoccupations of the community that commissioned the cycles, Stathakopoulos, in the second part of his chapter, turns to Joseph Bryennios (born around 1350), who recorded a vivid depiction of his experiences during his appointment on Crete, in an attempt to look into the contemporary society that commissioned the Cretan Hell cycles that lie at the heart of this publication.

Angeliki Lymberopoulou identifies the basic characteristics of the imagery of Hell (the Place of Hell Formed by the River of Fire, Individual Sinners and Communal Punishments), but highlights the absence of iconographical standardisation. Since Hell signified divergence from the preaching of the Orthodox Church and highlighted to the faithful the consequences of sin, it was often formed according to the degree to which communities were affected by each transgression. As such, the professions depicted offer us valuable insight into the economic structure of the society and the role of women within a male-dominant society. To highlight the significance of repentance, individual sinners are often placed at eye level, creating a telling proximity between sinners and churchgoers, who are brutally reminded of the significance their own deeds could have in determining their final destination – Paradise or Hell. It can be argued that Cretan imagery of Hell acts as the Church’s call for repentance from the faithful, encouraging social disapproval of those who transgress against penal and ethical law.

Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Panayotis S. Katsafados explore images of Hell in churches of the 12th and 14th centuries in Lakonia, the southern Peloponnese, considering the transition of images of sinners from those collectively punished to those individually tormented. After examining the traces of images of Hell in two churches in Mystras and Chrysapha, the authors turn to more humble structures in Epidauros Limera and the Mani, where the representation of sinners is related to village life. The depicted priests, farmers, and women engage in sins that destabilised the village’s agrarian economy and disrupted social order, suggesting that, at a local level, warnings about behaviour in the earthly world were as critical to the community as warnings about salvation in the world to come. Rare images of figures labelled as ‘potion makers’ and ‘witches’ indicate attempts of the Church to regulate dangerous activities that contravened ecclesiastical law and teachings. Representations of usurers, falsifiers of documents, and those who cheat at the scales hint at the challenges that plagued communities in financial hardship. Such depictions continue in the region in the post-Byzantine period, though with increasing complexity, demonstrating a long-term interest in the use of imagery for social commentary.

The exterior has exposed stonework with reinforced masonry corners. It is covered by a tiled gable roof. Indentations suggest five glazed bowls were once inserted in a cross-shaped pattern at the top of the west wall. There is a single entrance in the centre of the west wall; it has an arched niche in the exterior wall above the lintel. A modern window has been inserted in the centre of the south wall.

The interior is covered by a pointed barrel vault with two transverse arches. Nave and sanctuary are separated by a modern wooden iconostasis.

A single-nave church; one of two churches dedicated to Saint Zosimas on Crete, and the only one to contain Hell scenes.1

The exterior is plastered and whitewashed and covered by a tiled gable roof. There is a single entrance in the centre of the west wall and a small modern window in the centre of the south wall.

The interior is covered by a barrel vault with one transverse arch. Nave and sanctuary are separated by the original stone templon.2 The north and south walls have two blind arches each.

Rembrandt Duits focuses on the Western aspect of Italo-Byzantine cultural and artistic interaction and thus expands the geographical setting of the Cretan representations of Hell. His chapter presents a new perspective on the origins of certain elements in the Cretan images of Hell, which he points out have parallels in Western – particularly Italian - art. He draws on a representative sample of 25 per cent of all the Cretan wall paintings showing Hell that appear to deviate from pre-established Byzantine traditions. The geographical dispersion and chronological range of the sample mean that this iconographic divergence cannot be explained as the impact of a single Cretan master or a local ‘school’. Duits draws our attention to iconographic elements that suggest an interaction of Cretan and Italian artists, such as devils pulling souls by ropes or chains, frontally rendered processions of sinners, the double-headed Dragon of the Depths, the structure of Hell, and inscriptions that identify certain sinners. He argues that while there are no clear formal derivations of Western art in Cretan Hell scenes, there is nonetheless a strong suggestion that Cretan painters were aware of certain trends in the Italian rendition of Hell.

The purpose of this catalogue is to present as complete an overview as possible of the representation of Hell in monumental art during the Venetian period on Crete (1211–1669). The catalogue comprises 107 churches with wall paintings showing or recorded to have once shown representations of Hell, datable for the most part to the 14th and early 15th centuries. Together, these 107 churches form about one eighth of the known body of churches from the Venetian era on Crete.1 They form a valuable cross section that allows us to study, through the lens of Hell, this particular insular tradition of church building and decoration, with its local peculiarities and its accommodation of the needs of a mixed Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic population.

Athanasios Semoglou examines the role of sponsorship and its influence on the iconographical depiction in Byzantine (Greek) Macedonia, arguing that donors affect the use and character of the monument chosen as their burial place. Semoglou vividly demonstrates the connection between the iconography of Hell and the hopes of the faithful for eternal life, which consists a strong motivation for donors to commission images of the Last Judgement. According to the author, the influence of sponsorship on the iconography of Hell can be detected in the illustration of parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), the earliest example of which is found in the Church of Saint Stephen in Kastoria, dated to the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century. Furthermore, the author asserts that during the middle Byzantine period two major changes occurred that led to the articulation of the dipole between sin/punishment and virtue/reward, the first being the consolidation of the Last Judgement in the narthex and the second its vertical alignment, both dominant characteristics in its later representations.

Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Panayotis S. Katsafados explore images of Hell in churches of the 12th and 14th centuries in Lakonia, the southern Peloponnese, considering the transition of images of sinners from those collectively punished to those individually tormented. After examining the traces of images of Hell in two churches in Mystras and Chrysapha, the authors turn to more humble structures in Epidauros Limera and the Mani, where the representation of sinners is related to village life. The depicted priests, farmers, and women engage in sins that destabilised the village’s agrarian economy and disrupted social order, suggesting that, at a local level, warnings about behaviour in the earthly world were as critical to the community as warnings about salvation in the world to come. Rare images of figures labelled as ‘potion makers’ and ‘witches’ indicate attempts of the Church to regulate dangerous activities that contravened ecclesiastical law and teachings. Representations of usurers, falsifiers of documents, and those who cheat at the scales hint at the challenges that plagued communities in financial hardship. Such depictions continue in the region in the post-Byzantine period, though with increasing complexity, demonstrating a long-term interest in the use of imagery for social commentary.