Minos and Demons, from the Last Judgment

The central figure, Minos, is a muscular, nude man with donkey-like ears, identified by the serpent that wraps around his body and bites his genitals. To his upper left, a small demon with pointed ears stares intently at him, while to his lower left, a grinning demon peers over a rocky ledge, pointing with a rod. The background is a stark, hatched gray space, suggesting the gloom of the underworld, with the partial heads of two additional shadowed demons visible in the bottom right corner. The figures are rendered with sharp, anatomical detail, typical of Mannerist engraving, emphasizing powerful musculature and dramatic, strained facial expressions.

This print is an engraving after the lower-right section of Michelangelo’s 'Last Judgment' in the Sistine Chapel, derived from Dante Alighieri's 'Inferno', where Minos judges the damned. It highlights the Renaissance reception of classical mythology through a Christian theological lens.