Online Talk · Punishment for Gluttons: An Art History of Food and Hell, with Art Historian Brenda Edgar
7pm ET (NYC time)
Monday, January 5, 2026
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org. A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
As early as the 12th century, European artists depicted the entrance to Hell as the mouth of a terrifying monster, through which sinners are stuffed. In his 14th-century Inferno, Dante Alighieri of Florence described a poetically just punishment for overeaters: being eternally eaten, digested, and excreted by Cerberus, the 3-Headed Dog, or even by Satan himself. Others imagined gluttons being punished by perpetual punitive force-feeding.
Gluttony had always been a deadly sin, but it wasn’t a serious problem until the 15th and 16th centuries, when economic changes resulted in a whole new world of gastronomic temptations; preachers and painters in the Baroque period would cast this cornucopia in a spiritually dangerous light.
In this vividly illustrated lecture, we'll trace the development of the Hellscape as imagined in the European arts from the Middle Ages through the Baroque and beyond, paying particular attention to the importance of eating and digestion as an essential component of its construction.
If fasting helps get you into heaven, what happens to you when you constantly overindulge?
Brenda Edgar is an art historian and yoga instructor in Louisville, KY. Her art history research interests include relics, reliquaries, and all things Roman Catholic; medieval medical manuscripts and depictions of disease in medieval art; and the historical role of altered states of consciousness in the creation of art. Her free monthly public talk series, “Art History Illustrated,” is presented at the Cultural Arts Center in New Albany, Indiana; she also offers regular virtual classes through Morbid Anatomy, and teaches for Indiana University. In addition, Brenda is a certified yoga instructor with a robust teaching schedule. She lives in Louisville, KY with her two senior rescue dogs.
Images: Hell Mouth, Miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.945, f. 107r
7pm ET (NYC time)
Monday, January 5, 2026
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org. A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
As early as the 12th century, European artists depicted the entrance to Hell as the mouth of a terrifying monster, through which sinners are stuffed. In his 14th-century Inferno, Dante Alighieri of Florence described a poetically just punishment for overeaters: being eternally eaten, digested, and excreted by Cerberus, the 3-Headed Dog, or even by Satan himself. Others imagined gluttons being punished by perpetual punitive force-feeding.
Gluttony had always been a deadly sin, but it wasn’t a serious problem until the 15th and 16th centuries, when economic changes resulted in a whole new world of gastronomic temptations; preachers and painters in the Baroque period would cast this cornucopia in a spiritually dangerous light.
In this vividly illustrated lecture, we'll trace the development of the Hellscape as imagined in the European arts from the Middle Ages through the Baroque and beyond, paying particular attention to the importance of eating and digestion as an essential component of its construction.
If fasting helps get you into heaven, what happens to you when you constantly overindulge?
Brenda Edgar is an art historian and yoga instructor in Louisville, KY. Her art history research interests include relics, reliquaries, and all things Roman Catholic; medieval medical manuscripts and depictions of disease in medieval art; and the historical role of altered states of consciousness in the creation of art. Her free monthly public talk series, “Art History Illustrated,” is presented at the Cultural Arts Center in New Albany, Indiana; she also offers regular virtual classes through Morbid Anatomy, and teaches for Indiana University. In addition, Brenda is a certified yoga instructor with a robust teaching schedule. She lives in Louisville, KY with her two senior rescue dogs.
Images: Hell Mouth, Miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.945, f. 107r
7pm ET (NYC time)
Monday, January 5, 2026
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org. A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
As early as the 12th century, European artists depicted the entrance to Hell as the mouth of a terrifying monster, through which sinners are stuffed. In his 14th-century Inferno, Dante Alighieri of Florence described a poetically just punishment for overeaters: being eternally eaten, digested, and excreted by Cerberus, the 3-Headed Dog, or even by Satan himself. Others imagined gluttons being punished by perpetual punitive force-feeding.
Gluttony had always been a deadly sin, but it wasn’t a serious problem until the 15th and 16th centuries, when economic changes resulted in a whole new world of gastronomic temptations; preachers and painters in the Baroque period would cast this cornucopia in a spiritually dangerous light.
In this vividly illustrated lecture, we'll trace the development of the Hellscape as imagined in the European arts from the Middle Ages through the Baroque and beyond, paying particular attention to the importance of eating and digestion as an essential component of its construction.
If fasting helps get you into heaven, what happens to you when you constantly overindulge?
Brenda Edgar is an art historian and yoga instructor in Louisville, KY. Her art history research interests include relics, reliquaries, and all things Roman Catholic; medieval medical manuscripts and depictions of disease in medieval art; and the historical role of altered states of consciousness in the creation of art. Her free monthly public talk series, “Art History Illustrated,” is presented at the Cultural Arts Center in New Albany, Indiana; she also offers regular virtual classes through Morbid Anatomy, and teaches for Indiana University. In addition, Brenda is a certified yoga instructor with a robust teaching schedule. She lives in Louisville, KY with her two senior rescue dogs.
Images: Hell Mouth, Miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.945, f. 107r