The episode in Milton's Paradise Lost when Satan enters the Serpent, just before tempting Eve, has been very rarely drawn by artists. Two of them, well, should be well-known to you: see Terrance Lindall's version, and dhr's.
The picture above is taken from one of most beautiful Medieval books ever: the Rupertsberg Code, of the late 12th century, containing the collection of revelations called Scivias by St Hildegard of Bingen. The black smoke mass, recalling a burnt tree or a hand, represents Satan, while the horizontal red 'pipe' is the serpent's body, or rather 'soul,' being invaded by the devil. Eve is shown as a cloud filled with stars.
The only existing edition of Scivias in Italian - published by the Vatican (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002) - is unfortunately not very good: the translation would need some editing, and, above all, a great part of the contents have been quickly summarized or completely skipped. But, at least, its wonderful miniatures can be enjoyed. And a personal, modern remake of them will be soon posted on this website. Stay tuned!
Thanks for this interesting post!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your interest!
DeleteDavvero interessante! Mi piace leggere questo tipo di post :)
ReplyDelete... e viceversa ;-)
DeleteIn Judaism the dead tree symbolises death, the image/motif is often depicted on Jewish gravestones, eg in Warsaw, the old J. graveyard just outside town, a beautiful place and now also a nature reserve. ON the image above we see the maw of hell/death depicted as a dead tree/ also a little like a hand as is noted .I like the idea of the horizontal line depicting the serpent as it slides past, just as we see part of a snake move in a chink of a wall, behind stones
ReplyDeleteAnd Eve: as stars in the sky, a pun on the word Eve, what a lovely image
thanks for this
Ann T. G., Oslo
Dear Ann, I thank you! a fascinating insight!
Deletejust, the pun on the word "Eve" would not work in Latin --- but Hildegard said she heard all of that in a supernatural language, so who knows?
:-)
best!