Inspiration
The idea of "Three Mothers" comes from "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow", a section of Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis. The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates and Graces, there are also three Sorrows. They include Mater Lachrymarum (Our Lady of Tears), Mater Suspiriorum (Our Lady of Sighs), and Mater Tenebrarum (Our Lady of Darkness). The attribute of each woman (tears, sighs, shadows/darkness) is a direct translation of her name from Latin. (Mater being the Latin word for "mother".)
Suspiria clearly derives its title from the woman delineated in de Quincey's work. However, Inferno's title does not reference Mater Tenebrarum. Thus, Argento's 1982 film Tenebrae is sometimes mistaken as the second installment in the trilogy.
Coincidentally, Fritz Leiber published his novel Our Lady of Darkness in 1977, the same year that Suspiria came out. This novel also references De Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis and quotes from it in its foreword. Just as in Argento's telling, the novel focusses on buildings and architecture, as the place where evil dwells. However the parallels end there. Leiber's novel pursues a more Lovecraftian mythos and the source of the malevolence comes from a male warlock rather than a female witch. Despite the lengthy introductory quotation from de Quincey, the three Ladies, or Mothers, make no appearance in Leiber's work.
Read more about this topic: The Three Mothers
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