INFERNO, Canto XVIII, illustration 1

Title: The border that remains between the well-pit

and the great cliff forms an enormous circle,

and ten descending troughs are cut in it,

offering a general prospect like the ground

that lies around one of those ancient castles

whose walls are girded many times around

by concentric moats. And just as, from the portal,

the castle's bridges run from moat to moat

to the last bank; so from the great rock wall

across the embankments and the ditches, high

and narrow cliffs run to the central well,

which cuts and gathers them like radii.

8.5 x 11.25 inches
acrylic paint, collage, and ink on found paper
September 23, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 4

Title: …I leaned my head out and stared into Hell.

I trembled again at the prospect of dismounting

and cowered in on myself, for I saw fires

on every hand, and I heard a long lamenting.

10 x 7.125 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
September 22, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 3

Title: Slowly, slowly he swims on through space,

wheels and descends, but I can sense it only

by the way the wind blows upward past my face.

14.75 x 10.75 inches
acrylic paint, collage, and ink on found paper
September 19, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 2

Title: I examined several faces there among

that sooty throng, and I saw none I knew;

but I observed that from each neck there hung

an enormous purse, each marked with its own beast

and its own colors like a coat of arms.

On these their streaming eyes appeared to feast.

11 x 8.25 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
September 17, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 1

Title: His face was innocent of every guile,

benign and just in feature and expression;

and under it his body was half reptile.

His two great paws were hairy to the armpits;

all his back and breast and both his flanks

were figured with bright knots and subtle circles:

never was such a tapestry of bloom

woven on earth by Tartar or by Turk,

nor by Arachne at her flowering loom.

10.75 x 14.75 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
September 14, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVI, illustration 4

Title: ...I saw swimming up through that foul air

a shape to astonish the most doughty soul,

a shape like one returning through the sea

from working loose an anchor run afoul

of something on the bottom - so it rose,

its arms spread upward and its feet drawn close.

11 x 8.25 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
September 9, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVI, illustration 3

Title: "O Florence! Your sudden wealth and your upstart

rabble, dissolute and overweening,

already set you weeping in your heart!"

11.25 x 8.5 inches
acrylic paint on found paper
March 21, 2021

image 2308

INFERNO, Canto XVI, illustration 2

Title: "Guido Guerra was the name he bore,

the good Gualdrada's grandson. In his life

he won great fame in counsel and in war.

The other who behind me treads this sand

was Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, whose good counsels

the world would have done well to understand.

And I who share in their torment, in my life

was Jacopo Rusticucci, above all

I owe my sorrows to a savage wife."

15.75 x 10.875 inches
acrylic paint on found paper
March 16, 2021

image 2307

INFERNO, Canto XVI, illustration 1

Title: …three shades turned together on the plain,

breaking toward us from a company

that went its way to torture in that rain.

8.5 x 11.25 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
March 14, 2021

image 2306

INFERNO, Canto XV, illustration 4

Title: "…if you had any longing for such scum,

you might have seen that one the Servant of Servants

sent from the Arno to the Bacchiglione

where he left his unnatural organ wrapped in cerements."

10.875 x 15.75 inches
acrylic paint on found paper
March 12, 2021

image 2305

INFERNO, Canto XV, illustration 3

Title: "Ah, had I all my wish," I answered then.

"you would not yet be banished from the world

in which you were a radiance among men,

for that sweet image, gentle and paternal,

you were to me in the world when hour by hour

you taught me how man makes himself eternal,

lives in my mind, and now strikes to my heart..."

15.5 x 10.875 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
March 11, 2021

image 2304

INFERNO, Canto XV, illustration 2

Title: And I, when he stretched out his arm to me,

searched his baked features closely, till at last

I traced his image from my memory

in spite of the burnt crust, and bending near

to put my face closer to his, at last

I answered: "Ser Brunetto, are you here?"

16 x 10.875 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
March 9, 2021

image 2303