About

The LEDA Project is an online research database dedicated to the study of representations of Hell in the wall paintings of Venetian-dominated Crete, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. It was developed as one of the research outcomes of the Leverhulme Trust International Networks Project, ‘Damned in Hell in the frescoes of Venetian-dominated Crete 13th–17th centuries’, which ran from October 2010 to September 2014.

Crete provides an exceptional focus for this research because of the large number of surviving churches with wall paintings from the period of Venetian rule, 1211–1669. These monuments sit at an important point of cultural exchange between the Byzantine, post-Byzantine and wider Mediterranean worlds. Many of the churches are in remote locations, making the database an important means of preserving, organising and sharing visual and contextual material gathered through extensive fieldwork.

The database brings together photographs, catalogue information and iconographic records relating to churches that include scenes of Hell and the punishment of sinners. The project team visited, catalogued and photographed the relevant churches, creating a resource that supports the study of Venetian Crete, Byzantine and post-Byzantine art, religious imagery, social history and the wider development of the European Renaissance.

The research has also had a major published outcome: Hell in the Byzantine World: A History of Art and Religion in Venetian Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Edited by Angeliki Lymberopoulou, with Volume 2 by Angeliki Lymberopoulou and Rembrandt Duits, the two-volume work provides a substantial scholarly study and catalogue of the material.

The publication is described by Open Research Online as the first large-scale investigation of images of Hell from churches across Venetian Crete, collecting and publishing this material comprehensively for the first time. It presents 107 churches with existing or formerly recorded representations of Hell, showing how these images reflected local religious belief, social expectations and perceptions of sin.

Alongside the book, Cambridge University Press hosts plans of the Cretan churches included in the database, further supporting researchers in understanding the placement and architectural context of the imagery. Together, the LEDA database and the Cambridge publication form a lasting research resource for the study of art, religion and society in Venetian Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Publications

Lymberopoulou, A. ed. (2020). Hell in the Byzantine World: A History of Art and Religion in Venetian Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean. Volume 1: Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lymberopoulou, A. and Duits, R. (2020). Hell in the Byzantine World: A History of Art and Religion in Venetian Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean. Volume 2: A Catalogue of the Cretan Material. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.