Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727), had memorable visions of Hell. Here are some extracts: February 14, 1694, she saw Hell opened. Many souls were falling into it, hideous and black, and terrifying to behold. They disappeared into the middle of the flames ... She could hear the howls and blasphemies of the damned, and with it all there was a stench, and horrible darkness. January 27, 1716, Mary, appearing to the saint, summoned two angels to be her guardians and lead her in spirit to the gates of Hell ... She found herself facing a darksome place, deep and stinking, out of which came noises of animals, the hissing of snakes, dreadful voices, and claps of thunder. She perceived a tall mountain, all covered with serpents and vipers. Curses were issuing from beneath them, then the mountain opened and seemed to be full of damned souls and demons holding them bound with chains of fire ... She saw other mountains, the scenes of torments even more cruel. In the center of this infernal abode was raised up a throne. There sat Lucifer, a frightful sight to see. He seemed to have a head-piece composed of a hundred heads, all stuck with spears, and on the butt of each there was a sort of eye, emitting spurts of fire, which set all Hell ablaze. The number of demons and damned was incalculable; yet each of these beheld this horrible head and received from Lucifer torment upon torment. He saw them all, and all of them saw him. "Here," she said, "my angels gave me to understand that, just as in Heaven the sight of God brings happiness to all the saints, so here in Hell that dreadful form of Lucifer, that hellish monster, brings torment to the damned. Their greatest punishment is loss of God; this is the pain that Lucifer endures the first of all, and then the rest of them participate in it. He blasphemes, and all blaspheme; he curses, and so do they; he suffers and is in torture, and all suffer and are in torture too. "I believe," she said finally, "that if I had not had my angels with me, and had not been fortified by my dear Mother, I would have died of horror. All I have told of it is a mere nothing, and all that I have heard of it from preachers is nothing at all, when compared with what I saw." ~~~***~~~~During another vision Jesus showed Sister Veronica hell, where the souls of unrepentant sinners chose to go to spend their eternity in its fiery depths, Sister Veronica wrote down in her dairy what she saw. "At that moment I was once again shown hell opened, and it seems that many souls descended there, and they were so ugly and black that they struck terror in me." This holy sister upon seeing such a sight begged our Lord for mercy and prayed before the Divine Justice, with outstretched arms, "as long as I stand in the doorway, no one shall enter: O souls go back! My God, I ask nothing of You, but the salvation of sinners, Send me more torments, more crosses!" Our Lady appeared before Veronica and said to her, "Many do not believe that hell exists, and I tell you that you yourself, who have been there, have understood nothing of what hell is."