In the Bible, the creation of Hell is closely linked to the idea of ​​a rebellion of the angels, led by Lucifer.

This work is an extraordinary interpretation of the theme of the rebel angels’ fall. It was commissioned by the Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta Marcantonio Trento, and might therefore hint at the commitment of the Christian soldier, whose protector is St Michael. Carved between 1706 and 1739 from a single block of marble, it has always aroused wonder and amazement. So it was for American writer Herman Melville, who saw it in 1857 and was so impressed that he gave a lecture on the sculpture in Cincinnati.

At the base of the composition, in an upright position, you can see the superb Lucifer who, armed with a pitchfork, points his index finger while all around him his fallen comrades are already turning into devils.

Incidentally, where is Hell, according to the Bible? The indications are scarce.

Laura Bossi, in her essay "Hell. A Topography of Evil", lists some descriptions found in the Old Testament: tomb, depths of the Earth, the kingdom of the dead, the kingdom where the dead cannot praise God. The book of Job also speaks of darkness, shadows, night, and of the "gates" of death. When eternal torments are evoked, they refer to worms and fire, in short, to images linked to the fate of corpses.

It is in the apocalyptic texts, especially in the vision of the Book of Enoch, that there is a description of Hell as the prison of the rebel angels: a terrible place, a fiery abyss. Not only the rebellious angels, but the kings and the powerful of the Earth, those who have committed injustices, fraud or blasphemy are chained up and tortured, forever.

In the Gospels, on the other hand, Hell occupies a secondary place, and it is generally referred to as gehenna, a term that relates to Jewish topography. Gehenna is in fact the valley formed by the Hinnom stream South of Mount Zion - in Hebrew ge-hinnom means valley of the Hinnom - a place where, in the times of ancient Canaan, children were sacrificed to the cult of Moloch, and which was then used as a landfill for the city’s ​​waste and for the cremation of criminals’ corpses.