The Cyclorama of Hell was presented to the public in May 1896, on the corner of (what was then known as) Arena Avenue and City Park.
The inventor of the concept – who was also the director and marketing manager of the project – was none other than Géza Gárdonyi. Inspired by the success of the Feszty Cyclorama and by Dante’s Divine Comedy, which he was in the process of translating at the time, Gárdonyi had the idea of creating a cyclorama of Dante’s Hell.

The Cyclorama of Hell, created by scenographers Árpád Molnár and Károly Trill, sculptor Miklós Ligeti, and others, opened its doors – albeit somewhat hastily – and, thanks to Gárdonyi’s zealous marketing activities (articles, songs, marches, etc.), it received its hundred-thousandth visitor by mid-June (see Kiállítási Újság [Exhibition News], 28 June 1896).

The Cyclorama of Hell has nevertheless entered the annals of history as Gárdonyi’s failed undertaking: while the cyclorama had been opened to visitors, it was still under construction. In the daytime, the exhibition was open, but during the night, the work continued. The production was deemed as a failure from an aesthetic standpoint as well. According to Rozália Fesztyné Jókai: “In tin-caves and on tin-cliffs, one could see, illuminated by red light bulbs and drawn with tin-imagination, a collection of the damned – they too, cut out of tin. Poor, miserable tin-hell… The whole thing was like today’s cave railway in the amusement park.” (Árpádné Feszty: A tegnap [Yesterday], Budapest, 1924. Légrády, p. 14.)
The Cyclorama was essentially lost, only the illustrations from the book entitled Hell (which Géza Gárdonyi translated) are known to us today, which were taken from the paintings of the Molnár-Trill cyclorama.

Using these images, and with the help of virtual reality, I have created a kind of reconstruction of the Cyclorama of Hell. The application allows the viewer to walk inside the images of Hell, while listening to the tunes of the march entitled Go to Hell, composed – as per Gárdonyi’s request – by Pista Dankó.