The Circle of the Traitors; Dante's Foot Striking Bocca degli Abbate

The Circle of the Traitors; Dante's Foot Striking Bocca degli Abbate is a dramatic engraving originally conceived by William Blake and executed as a restrike by Harry Hoehn in 1827. This print belongs to Blake’s celebrated final series of illustrations dedicated to Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. The composition captures the violent confrontation in Cocytus, the ninth and innermost circle of Hell reserved for the traitors. The scene depicts the poet Dante, struggling across the frozen lake, inadvertently kicking the head of Bocca degli Abbati, a Florentine traitor frozen solid in the ice.

This work exemplifies the profound engagement British artists had with classical literature during the period of 1826 to 1850. Blake created the original drawings late in his life, and though he did not complete the full series of engravings before his death, Hoehn was responsible for skillfully finishing and publishing the plates for this edition. The work is classified as a print, utilizing the highly demanding technique of engraving to achieve intense darks and precise linear detail required to depict the icy, tormented depths of Hell.

The resulting image maintains the spiritual intensity and raw energy characteristic of Blake’s visual language, focusing heavily on the moral drama of the moment. This restrike, produced circa 1827, is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. The accessibility of such historical prints ensures the enduring legacy of this collaboration. Today, prints derived from plates of this era often enter the public domain, allowing wide study and appreciation of Blake’s masterful, though posthumously completed, illustrations of the Inferno.