The Devil

Examining who he is, and particularly how and why he looks the way he does as a response to changing political and social conditions, this book discusses what the Devil has looked like in painting and sculpture from the 6th to the 16th century, based on specific examples and using original sources. The ideological function of the Devil differed, for example, before the 10th century, and during the 11th and 12th centuries and the Renaissance, which is a central reason why he is quite different in Romanesque Apocalypses and in Gothic Last Judgements. Defining the Church's changing response to heresies is another way in which the book explores how the Devil's role and visual image in painting and sculpture was politically conditioned.