Visio Tnugdali

The Visio Tnugdali (Vision of Tundale) was the most influential vision of heaven and hell before Dante's Divina Commedia. It was written in Latin in 1149 by a Frater Marcus in Regensburg and was soon widely circulated, with 172 manuscripts found to date, as well as translated into at least 13 languages.

The story tells of an Irish knight (Tnugdalus, later simplified Tundalus) who falls into catalepsis, but wakes again after three days of seeming death. He then tells how devils came to catch his soul, but an angel came to save him, showing him subsequently the terrors of purgatory and hell (it is disputed whether the text actually makes a difference between the two) as well as the pleasures of heaven. Tundalus' soul is then sent back into his body, to tell what he has seen.

The early manuscripts lack illuminations, but later artists were inspired by the detailed descriptions of the loci terribiles where souls are being tortured.

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  Lucifer - torturing souls as well as being tortured himself in hell (Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, folio 108r - 15th century)
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  Tundalus is shown the gaping mouth of the monster Acheron (Simon Marmion, ca. 1475)
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  detail
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  detail
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  Tundalus is shown a part of heaven (1483)
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  Tondalus der Ritter (the Knight) (1514)
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  Locus terribilis in hell (1514)
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  Tundalus is shown a part of heaven (1514)
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  His soul is brought back to his body (1514)
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  Hahn, Gedichte (1840): Edition of medieval German texts, including the MHG Visio Tnugdali of Alber of Windberg (pp. 41-66). Hahns edition of this poem has been superseded by that of A. Wagner (1882)