What makes Botticelli’s “Divine Comedy” so special?
Meanwhile, Botticelli opens the Divine Comedy with the Chart of Hell, a summary scheme of Dante’s journey through the Hell, that will be taken deeply into consideration later on. Between the layout and the narrative of the illustrations, Botticelli’s innovations make his work an unprecedentedly ambitious conception.
How many drawings does Botticelli use to illustrate the Inferno?
Botticelli uses thirteen drawings to illustrate the eighth circle of Hell, depicting ten chasms that Dante and Virgil descend through a ridge. Inferno X, with just Dante (in red) and Virgil (in blue) coloured. Each page of the manuscript was approximately 32 cm high by 47 cm wide.
Why does Botticelli use a different technique for these drawings?
Why Botticelli uses a different technique for these drawings is worth debating. On one side (like in the Primavera example), he uses the paper for sketching where to try different styles and lines. He shows his ability to visualize a scene that later on would have been projected onto a larger scale.
Was Botticelli a true witness of the afterlife?
As it is known from Vasari’s words, and as it was pointed out in the introduction, Botticelli was a man with a strong faith and he probably considered Dante a true witness of the afterlife.
The Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli
The manuscript consists of 100 cantos, while the printed text includes one engraving for each canto. Only 19 illustrations were engraved, and the majority of the book copies only have the first two or three.
Themes and Techniques
The thematic section of each canto was envisioned to be followed by Boticcelli's full-page drawing. The artist eventually combined this concept with a continuous narrative, where recurrent incidents were shown, unframed, and in the margin below the text.
The Relevance of Botticelli's Divine Comedy
These compelling manuscripts show several innovations in the way text and images are being presented in a volume. Some other illustrated manuscripts of Dante's Inferno are characterized by the appearance of multiple illustrations used to feature the events described in a canto.
How many illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy are there?
Botticelli’s 92 Surviving Illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1481) Botticelli’s 92 Surviving Illustrations of Dante’s. Divine Comedy. (1481) Every true Renaissance man needed a wealthy patron, and many Italian artist-inventor-scholar-poets found theirs in Lorenzo de’Medici, scion of a Florentine dynasty and himself a scholar and poet.
Who painted Dante's portrait?
The painter also made a portrait of Dante, Vasari tells us, and drew sketches for engravings in the first Florentine edition of The Divine Comedy in 1481. It seems, however, that Botticelli’s interest in Dante went much further than even Vasari knew. Sometime late in his career—after he had already achieved local renown in Florence—Botticelli ...
Who was the father of art history?
In 1550, the so-called “father of art history” Giorgio Vasari recorded that “since Botticelli was a learned man, he wrote a commentary on part of Dante’s poem, and after illustrating the Inferno, he printed the work.”. The painter also made a portrait of Dante, Vasari tells us, and drew sketches for engravings in the first Florentine edition ...
The Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli
- The manuscript consists of 100 cantos, while the printed text includes one engraving for each canto. Only 19 illustrations were engraved, and the majority of the book copies only have the first two or three. Besides the illustrations executed for The Divine Comedy, Sandro Botticelli also illustrated anotherCommedia, a printed edition with engraving...
Themes and Techniques
- The thematic section of each canto was envisioned to be followed by Boticcelli'sfull-page drawing. The artist eventually combined this concept with a continuous narrative, where recurrent incidents were shown, unframed, and in the margin below the text. For that reason, the principal figures of Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice reappear several times in an image. In total, the artist used t…
The Relevance of Botticelli's Divine Comedy
- These compelling manuscripts show several innovations in the way text and images are being presented in a volume. Some other illustrated manuscripts of Dante's Inferno are characterized by the appearance of multiple illustrations used to feature the events described in a canto. Botticelli managed to disrupt that order and focus on one specific illustration, having the text on a single …