Giovanni Villani tells us that in 1304 the companies and clubs of pleasure, formed for making festival throughout the town of Florence on the 1st of May, contended with each other for the prize of novelty and rarity in sports provided for the people.

"Among the rest, the Borgo S.Friano had it cried about the streets, that whoso wished for news from the other world, should find himself on Mayday on the bridge Carraja or the neighbouring banks of Arno.

And in Arno they contrived stages upon boats and various small craft, and made the semblance and figure of Hell there with flames and other pains and torments, with men dressed as demons horrible to see; and others had the shape of naked souls; and these they gave unto those divers tortures with exceeding great crying and groaning and confusion, the which seemed hateful and appalling unto eyes and ears.

The novelty of the sport drew many citizens, and the bridge Carraja, then of wood, was so crowded that it brake in several places and fell with the folk upon it, whereby were many killed and drowned, and many were disabled; and as the crier had proclaimed, so now in death went much folk to learn news of the other world." Such being the temper of the people, we find that some of the greatest works of art in this age were paintings of Death and Hell, Heaven and Judgment.

Orcagna, in the Strozzi Chapel of S.Maria Novella, set forth these scenes with a wonderful blending of beauty and grotesque invention.
In the treatment of the Inferno he strove to delineate the whole geography of Dante's first _cantica_, tracing the successive circles and introducing the various episodes commemorated by the poet.