From the Rule of the Antichrist and the End of the World to the Resurrection of the Dead and the Damned Entering Hell, their faces would grow increasingly worried and then alarmed. Not even the Catholic pilgrims in robes and sandals seemed comfortable as they watched the teeming population of the damned being tortured by terrifying demons painting in other-worldly colors all writhing together in the maelstrom of Signorelli’s version of Hell.
A particularly famous detail from this fresco is of a young woman being born on the back of a horned demon in flight. She is completely naked and looking back in horror from the place where the angels of God guard the gates of heaven so no sinners escape. With her long flowing blonde hair, one of the guides--an old timer it seemed-- suggested that Signorelli had painted the likeness one of his previous mistresses in this role as female captive. The leering demon was likened to that if a butcher hauling the carcass of an animal to be skinned back to his lair.
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