Art, Symbol & Imagination
Caiaphas beneath the Passing Company
A spread-eagled figure is fixed to the ground while the two travellers and heavily clothed inhabitants stand around him. A friar identifies the figure through the counsel that one person should suffer for the people. In Dante’s scene the passing inhabitants must place their weight upon him, extending the canto’s imagery of burden. Doré makes the horizontal body interrupt the upright procession and draws the observers’ attention downward. This is the poem’s hostile representation of Caiaphas, not a historical portrait or an endorsement of collective blame. Pencil marks outside the engraving are excluded from the derivative crop.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "Caiaphas beneath the Passing Company" [editorial title]. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri. New Edition, undated supplied scan, undated edition, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 166. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/inferno-dore-159
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Full original plate and caption individually inspected; exact neighbouring canto read. Editorial title. Source tone and intrinsic damage retained; rotation applies only to Gallery derivatives.
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Gustave Doré (design). Caiaphas beneath the Passing Company. Dante's Inferno. Scan leaf 166. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/inferno-dore-159