15th-Century Illuminations for Dante’s Divine Comedy

Dante's epic 14th-century poem the Divine Comedy - with its dazzling descriptions of all manner of hellish and heavenly scenes - has proven fertile ground for many artists over the centuries, including the likes of William Blake, Gustave Doré, and Salvador Dali. One of the most impressive attempts to render the verse into visuals comes to us in the form of the illuminations found in an Italian manuscript produced only 125 years or so after Dante completed his poem in 1320. Dated to between 1444 and 1450, the illuminations vary in style due to the fact that two separate artists worked on them, with the first two sections of Inferno and Purgatorio being drawn by the lesser known Priamo della Quercia (active 1426-1467), while the Paradiso section was illustrated by Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia (ca. 1403-1482) who contributed 61 illuminations in all. The work has belonged to Alfonso V, king of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily (1396 – 1458) and his great grandson Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria (1488 – 1550), who donated the manuscript to the convent of San Miguel in Valencia in 1538. It was later bought in 1901 by Henry Yates Thompson, a collector of illuminated manuscripts, and was donated to the British Museum in 1941. Here below are a few choice selections.

Medium

Images

Theme

Style

Manuscripts

Epoch

Pre-16th Century

Tags

	Source	British Library

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	Underlying Work Rights	PD Worldwide
	Digital Copy Rights	No Additional Rights Source encourages re-use (though technically still in copyright in UK) See their general rights page We offer this info as guidance only
	Download	Right click on image or see source for higher res versions
	Found Via	Melibeus

Dante being rowed by Charon across the River Acheron, from the closing lines of Canto III in the Inferno - Source.

The cardinal sinners being punished in Hell - Source

Dante and Virgil entering the fourth circle, with Plutus Avaricius, the Prodigals and the Wrathful - Source

Dante and Virgil looking into the tomb of Pope Anastasius, and the three tiers of the violent, suicides, and other malefactors - Source

Dante breaking a branch from one of the trees in the wood of the suicide, which shouts in pain and bleeds, Dante and Virgil conversing with the wounded tree, Piero delle Vigne, and watching the souls of two suicides being chased by demons, while harpies perch in the trees - Source

Virgil and Dante entering the eighth circle, that of adulterers, seducers, and flatterers - Source

Dante and Virgil entering the area devoted to simoniacs and magicians, while Dante speaks to the upside-down figure of Pope Nicholas III, with a figure of the True Church in the centre, as a lady dressed in blue with a gold star on her breast, and a seven-headed monster before her (presumably the false church) - Source

Dante and Virgil witnessing Vanno Fucci, the pillager of a church in Pistoia, being attacked by the monster Cacus, who is half-centaur and half-dragon, and Dante and Virgil speaking to three other souls, tormented by snakes and lizards - Source

Dante and Virgil encountering groups of coiners, counterfeiters, alchemists, and forgers - Source

Dante and Virgil witnessing the gigantic figure of Dis, with his three mouths biting on the sinners Cassius, Judas, and Brutus, and Dante and Virgil emerging from the Inferno - Source

Dante and Virgil at the gates of Purgatory, and the Proud carrying heavy stones - Source

Dante and Virgil with Pope Adrian V, Hugh Capet, and Statius, in Purgatory - Source

Dante and Virgil before Forise Donati, who explains the punishment due to the Gluttons, who see food they cannot reach - Source

Dante and Virgil observing the fate of the Lustful - Source

Dante and Apollo before Parnassus - Source

Beatrice explaining to Dante that the universe is a hierarchy of being, with creatures devoid of reason in the early 'sea of being', and heaven as nine spheres rules by the figure of love - Source