Welcome to On Verticality. This blog explores the innate human need to escape the surface of the earth, and our struggles to do so throughout history. If you’re new here, a good place to start is the Theory of Verticality section or the Introduction to Verticality. If you want to receive updates on what’s new with the blog, you can use the Subscribe page to sign up. Thanks for visiting!
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The Flight of Geryon
The above illustration by Gustave Doré shows a scene from Dante’s Divine Comedy. The epic poem follows Dante and Virgil as they pass through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, and it deals with the concepts of Heaven and Hell, as well as the Seven Deadly Sins. This scene is from Canto XXVII of Inferno, when Dante and Virgil mount the back of the great beast Geryon and fly down from the seventh to the eighth circle of hell.