About us / Info
Seventh Circle Artworks create custom-made and alternative jewellery including one-off designs and limited edition pieces. All pieces are hand crafted to a high standard using traditional methods and skills.
Each piece is made to order and takes approximately 2-4 weeks for delivery. If you have any special requirements regarding pieces you have seen here eg: gold, different style chains etc., please use the contact form giving as much detail as possible as to your request and we will get back to you with a quote.
We can also create one-off commission pieces such as the horned skull tattoo ring shown in the gallery section. This ring was made using the tattoo as the original design.
oRecent clients using the cutom service include the bands Saint Vitus and Candlemass, Haunted Tattoos (London) and makeup artist Amelia Galiana.
Explanation of The Seventh Circle
The Seventh Circle is one of the nine circles of Hell described in Dantes Divine Comedy. The following extract is taken from Wikipedia:
The poem begins on the day before Good Friday in the year 1300. The narrator, Dante Alighieri himself, is thirty-five years old, and thus "halfway along our life's path" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita)half of the Biblical life expectancy of seventy (Psalm 90:10). The poem finds him lost in a dark wood, assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf) he cannot evade, and unable to find the "straight way" (diritta via)also translatable as "right way"to salvation. Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "deep place" (basso loco) where the sun is silent ('l sol tace), Dante is at last rescued by the Roman poet Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Inferno is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice; for example, fortune-tellers have to walk forwards with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because they tried to look ahead to the future in life.
Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription, the ninth (and final) line of which is the famous phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Uncommitted, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil (among these Dante recognizes either Pope Celestine V or Pontius Pilate; the text is ambiguous). Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron, their punishment to eternally pursue a banner (i.e. self interest) while pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them while maggots and other such insects drink their blood and tears.
This symbolizes the sting of their conscience and the repugnance of sin. As with the Purgatorio and Paradiso, the Inferno has a structure of 9+1=10, with this "vestibule" different in nature from the nine circles of Hell, and separated from them by the Acheron.
After passing through the "vestibule," Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil forces Charon to take him by means of another famous line Vuolsi così colà ove si puote, which translates to "So it is wanted there where the power lies," referring to the fact that Dante is on his journey on divine grounds.
The wailing and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat are a contrast to the joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio. However, the actual passage across the Acheron is undescribed since Dante faints and does not awake until he is on the other side.
Virgil then guides Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating at the centre of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. Each circle's sinners are punished in a fashion fitting their crimes: each sinner is afflicted for all of eternity by the chief sin he committed. People who sinned but prayed for forgiveness before their deaths are found not in Hell but in Purgatory, where they labour to be free of their sins. Those in Hell are people who tried to justify their sins and are unrepentant.
Allegorically, the Inferno represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really is, and the three beasts represent three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious. These three types of sin also provide the three main divisions of Dante's Hell: Upper Hell (the first 5 Circles) for the self-indulgent sins; Circles 6 and 7 for the violent sins; and Circles 8 and 9 for the malicious sins.
The Seventh Circle (Violence)
The seventh circle houses the violent. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur and it is divided into three rings:
Outer ring: This ring houses the violent against people and property, who are immersed in Phlegathon, a river of boiling blood, to a level commensurate with their sins: Alexander The Great is up to his eyebrows in it. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron, patrol the ring, firing arrows into those trying to escape. The centaur Nessus guides the poets along Phlegethon and across a ford in the river (Canto XII). This passage may have been influenced by the early medieval Visio Karoli Grossi.
Middle ring: In this ring are the suicides (the violent against self), who are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees, which are fed on by the Harpies. Unique among the dead, the suicides will not be bodily resurrected after the final judgement, having given their bodies away through suicide. Instead they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the limbs. Dante breaks a twig off one of the bushes and from the broken, bleeding, branch hears the tale of Pier Delle Vigne, who committed suicide after falling out of favour with Emperor Frederick II (his presence here, rather than in the ninth circle, indicates that Dante believes that the accusations made against him were false). The trees are a metaphor for the state of mind in which suicide is committed. The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained (i.e. money and property). They are perpetually chased by ferocious dogs through the thorny undergrowth (Canto XIII).
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