Art, Symbol & Imagination
The Travellers Survey the Pit of the Forgers
Two small cloaked travellers stand high on a ridge above a dark depression crowded with indistinct human forms. The tenth ditch brings a change from repeated wounds to the bodily afflictions assigned to falsification. Doré increases the distance between observers and inhabitants, using the high ridge to frame the pit as a landscape before the poem approaches particular speakers. The caption identifies the company as forgers. This is a broad introductory view, not an illustration of a single named alchemist or a medical chart; its illnesses belong to the poem’s moral and imaginative arrangement.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "The Travellers Survey the Pit of the Forgers" [editorial title]. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri. New Edition, undated supplied scan, undated edition, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 198. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/inferno-dore-191
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). The Travellers Survey the Pit of the Forgers. Dante's Inferno. Scan leaf 198. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/inferno-dore-191