Each court is ruled by a ‘yama’ or a king, who dishes out different punishments befitting the sins committed in one’s life. The concept ‘One reaps what one sows’ is the basis of the legend of the Ten Courts of Hell. However, the influence of Confucianism is so great that punishments for failing to comply, such as disrespect for the written word, lack of filial piety or inattention in class are often equal to, or more terrifying than that for murder. It is believed when one first dies, 2 guardians from Hades will come to take your soul to Hades. One has the head of a horse and the other of an ox. These are the guardians of Hell….Ox-Head and Horse-Face.

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Medieval Florence was always in flux, balancing the rough tide of misgivings between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which ultimately devolved into the Black and White Guelphs– the former supporting Pope Boniface, the latter opposing him. Legend has it that Santa Croce was built with blood money, stolen from Ghibelline noblemen after they were tortured and killed by Guelf podesta’s. The take was three-fold: one third to the papacy, one third to the city coffers, one third to the building of the church. This bad blood first began with a princely cad, one Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, who rejected an arranged marriage with an Amidei noblewoman, and instead married the more comely Ciulla Donati; this led to his horrific murder on Easter Sunday at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio, below the statue of Mars, by Mosca, Oderigo, and some other Amedei thugs (think: Montague and Capulets, or Hatfields and McCoys). Thus began the bloody civil strife that engulfed Florence for hundreds of years, a family feud which became conflated with diametrically opposed political and religious ideologies. While Dante was no Ghibelline (he fought successfully against them at Montaperti), his sympathies did not extend to the papacy…it can be said that Boniface’s darkened name owes everything to Dante’s wicked tongue.

Michelangelo was equally surly, and likewise spent his final years in exile for backing the wrong horse. However, his impact on the tumultuous city-state was even more considerable than Mr. Alighieri, as an architect, sculptor, painter, writer, social critic, and planner of the city’s defenses; like Dante, he was prolific outside of his home town in his final years, overseeing the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome until his death.

Come to think of it, Galileo spent his final years in house arrest for indirectly threatening the church with a new cosmology (non-Ptolomeic, of course), and Machiavelli was tortured, then exiled after pro-Medici forces took control of Florence. The odd man out in this group is one Gioacchino Rossini, the famed composer of the Barber of Seville, who died fat and happy.

The last photos in this series are of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, a Dominican church and the first great basilica in Florence.

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At the base of the dome, just above the drum, Baccio d’Agnolo began adding a balcony in 1507. One of the eight sides was finished by 1515, when someone asked Michelangelo — whose artistic opinion was by this time taken as cardinal law — what he thought of it. The master reportedly scoffed, “It looks like a cricket cage.” Work was immediately halted, and to this day the other seven sides remain rough brick.

Across the street, the Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery of St John) is believed to be the oldest building in Florence, home of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s infamous doors; while these are adequate copies, the originals now reside at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. The 21-year-old Ghiberti claimed he had won the competition for the North doors, even though Brunelleschi shared the honor with him; his prideful competitor left for Rome, allowing Ghiberti to make the doors himself, which then took 21 years to finish. In 1425, the now famous sculptor began a commission on the East doors with the same technique (”rilievo schiacciato” or “flattened relief”), which took 27 years to complete. Michelangelo rightfully proclaimed them the Gates of Paradise. Dante was baptised at the Battistero and was rumored to have broken one of the lower baptismal fonts to rescue a drowning child.

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