Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

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5 Nonetheless, Botticelli's Dante drawings are of such vision and beauty that, no less than the Primavera, they are central to his artistic achievement. In all likelihood, the cycle for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's manuscript was Botticelli's second effort at illustrating Dante, the first being designs for the Florence Commedia, published by Nicholo di Lorenzo della Magna in 1481 . 6 The engravings for Inferno I through XIX that were printed for this edition have long been attributed to Baccio Baldini, who according to Vasari, had no invenzione and relied exclusively on Botticelli for his designs. 7 The similarities between these engravings and Botticelli's Inferno drawings support the assumption that Botticelli made the designs Baldini used. If he did, the engravings are especially significant because they provide a sense of what the lost drawings for Inferno II-VIII and XIV looked like.

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wide, would, when open, have a breadth of at least 94 cm. A manuscript bound so as to open vertically would have none of the aforementioned shortcomings. When open, it would measure approximately 64 cm. in height and only 47 cm. across, a more manageable size. With the text below and the illumination above, the text would be easy to read and the illustration close at hand for detailed scrutiny This drawing thus binds the series together: the cosmographical plan of Hell that is presented in its first image is completed in the last, which in turn provides the geographical bridge to the mountain of Purgatory and the second stage of Dante's journey. This relation between the first and final images of the Inferno confirms a cohesive plan for the manuscript, a plan grounded in the manuscript's pictorial cycle.

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94 centimetres (37 in) wide. This would entail the readers turning their heads from left to right while trying to connect the text columns on the left to the illustration on the right. A vertical arrangement, stacking the illustration page on top of the text page, is a more efficient way of combining the text-illustration pair; a volume designed to open vertically is a more probable scenario for Botticelli's manuscript. If the manuscript's binding were to open vertically, the dimensions would be approximately 47 centimetres (19 in) wide by 64 centimetres (25 in) high, and would incorporate both the text and the illustration on a single page. This would have made reading the text and looking at the drawing of each canto easier and more efficient.

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printed on separate sheets that are pasted into place. This suggests that the production of the engravings lagged behind the printing, and the later illustrations were pasted into the stock of printed and bound books, and perhaps sold to those who had already bought the book. Unfortunately Baldini was neither very experienced nor talented as an engraver, and was unable to express the delicacy of Botticelli's style in his plates. The project may have been disrupted by Botticelli's summons to Rome to take part in the project to

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thematic sequence of a new canto. The text of each canto, from left to right, matches, to a high degree, the pictorial representation as the reader views the illustration from the upper left corner and then proceeds downwards. This reflects the vertical structure of the descent of the two poets through the nine circles of Hell. The additional two illustrations of the

234:, an important patron of the artist. The early 16th-century writer known as the Anonimo Magliabecchiano says that Botticelli painted a Dante on parchment for Lorenzo, but makes it sound as if this was a completed work. Alternatively the drawings we have may have been a different set for Botticelli's own use and pleasure, which is the conclusion of Ronald Lightbown. 279:

about 1480 and 1505 (by which time Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was dead). Botticelli never completed the task. Many of the images are not fully drawn and illumination is completed for only four of them. However, the drawings are of such artistry and beauty, that they have been described as "central to Botticelli's artistic achievement" and no less important than the

117:(Museum of Prints and Drawings) when the director Friedrich Lippmann bought 85 of Botticelli's drawings. Lippmann had moved swiftly and quietly, and when the sale was announced there was a considerable outcry in the British press and Parliament. Soon after that, it was revealed that another eight drawings from the same manuscript were in the 610:

The eighth circle is made up of a series of ten descending chasms (the Malebolge) that Dante and Virgil cross by a continuous ridge, which extends from the top to the bottom of the circle (XVIII:14–18).46 In the thirteen illustrations for this circle, Botticelli consistently placed these ponti on the

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The drawings' dates are uncertain, but he probably began them in the mid-1480s, and worked on them for an ex tended period, probably into the mid-1490s. 4 Unfortunately, he never finished the project. Many of the extant drawings are not fully fixed in pen, and only four of these contain illumination.

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Each page of the manuscript was approximately 32 cm high by 47 cm wide. Since the text of each canto was written on a single page and the accompanying illustration was on a separate page, arranging the two pages in a horizontal format would have been impractical as it would be approximately

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Botticelli's manuscripts incorporate several innovations in the way text and images are presented in the volume. In other similar illustrated manuscripts of Dante's Inferno, multiple illustrations were used to depict the events described in a canto. In addition, most of the space in a page was given

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The exact date of creation of the drawings is unknown but it is agreed that they were produced over a period of several years, and a stylistic development has been detected. Estimates vary between a start around the mid-1480s with the last approximately a decade later, and a period extending between

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From here, the step to a volume that opened vertically is almost inevitable when practical and aesthetic concerns are coupled with the nature of Botticelli's illustrations and the content of Dante's poem. A conventionally bound manuscript composed of sheets measuring over 32 cm. high and over 47 cm.

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Each page was first drawn with a metal stylus, leaving lines that are now very faint. There are numerous changes evident, which are easy to make in this technique. The next stage was to go over these lines with a pen and black or brown ink. Most of the pages were not taken beyond these stages, which

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In addition, unlike similar works, Botticelli's manuscript uses but a single illustration per canto, which occupied a whole page, presenting a unified depiction of the sequence of events of a canto in a vertical format. This way, the readers know that when they advance to a new page, they enter the

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It is very probable that Botticelli began the Dante drawings before he went to Rome in 1481. Vasari says that "he illustrated the Inferno, and caused it to be printed". Now we do possess an edition of the Divine Comedy, printed in Florence in 1481, in which the Inferno is illustrated with nineteen

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This formula is maintained in the extant illustrations for the third round, where those violent against God, nature, and art are punished page. By rendering vertically the planes of the second and third rounds, Botticelli linked their illustrations to that for the first round in which the space

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Botticelli renders vertically the ground planes of the illustrations of the second and third rounds of Inferno. Although the illustrations for the first three rounds depict different imagery, the vertical perspective links them into a single unit. The third round consists of the illustrations for

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was supposed to be illustrated by its own full-page drawing by Botticelli, an unprecedentedly ambitious conception. Normally, by the 15th century, a single incident was shown in each framed illustration in illustrated Dantes, as for other narrative works. Botticelli was combining this tradition

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consists of 100 cantos, and the printed text left space for one engraving for each canto. However, only 19 illustrations were engraved, and most copies of the book have only the first two or three. The first two, and sometimes three, are usually printed on the book page, while the later ones are

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Botticelli's attempt to design the illustrations for a printed book was unprecedented for a leading painter, and though it seems to have been something of a flop, this was a role for artists that had an important future. Vasari wrote disapprovingly of the edition: "being of a sophistical turn of

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The exact arrangement of text and illustrations is not known, but a vertical arrangement — placing the illustration page on top of the text page — is agreed on by scholars as a more efficient way of combining the text-illustration pairs. A volume designed to open vertically would be approximately

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that depicts Dante's and Virgil's descent to Hell. The text is written on the reverse of the drawings, so that it was on the same page as the next drawing. As was usual, the text was completed before the illustrations were begun, omitting the major capital letters which were to be illuminated.

304:, XXXI to XXXIII, but the drawings were never begun. The differing degrees of completion, and the canto numbers and first lines of the matching text inscribed on some sequences of pages but not others, all complicate understanding Botticelli's progress, and have been extensively debated. 747:

little engravings. The affinity between these plates and Botticelli's drawings is unmistakable. This edition, published under the direction of Cristophoro Landino, and furnished with his commentary on the poem*, it was originally proposed to illustrate with engravings throughout.

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Not only does the general character of these drawings at once suggest Botticelli, but a careful study of their details confirms the belief that they were entirely executed by him. We recognize throughout the specific character of his art as manifested in his best pictures,

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to the illustration and associated commentary while the text portion was smaller in comparison. Therefore, a single canto spread over multiple pages. Botticelli's text and illustration arrangement innovates by presenting the text on a single page in four vertical columns.

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There are 88 sheets in the Berlin group, 85 of them illustrated. These were in an 18th-century binding. The Vatican group is 8 drawings on 7 sheets; the introductory map of Hell is on the same sheet as the first illustration to Canto 1, on the

329:, though others are part-coloured, usually just the main figures. It has been argued that Botticelli, or his patron, came to prefer the uncoloured drawings, and deliberately left the rest, but this is not accepted by most scholars. 184:

mind, he there wrote a commentary on a portion of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he printed, spending much time over it, and this abstention from work led to serious disorders in his living." Vasari, who lived when

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drawings, many worked over in ink, but four pages are fully coloured. The manuscript eventually disappeared and most of it was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, having been detected in the collection of the

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are generally the most completed, and the most detailed, but cantos II to VII, XI and XIV are missing, though probably made by Botticelli. We have the text pages for the last cantos,

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The Berlin drawings and those in the Vatican collection were assembled together, for the first time in centuries, in an exhibition showing all 92 of them in Berlin, Rome, and London's

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Canto XVIII, part of the 8th circle of Hell. Dante and Virgil are each shown 6 times, descending through the 10 chasms of the circle via a ridge. One of only 4 fully coloured pages.

110:. Botticelli had earlier produced drawings, now lost, to be turned into engravings for a printed edition, although only the first nineteen of the hundred cantos were illustrated. 325:

are often found together on a page, with only some areas inked over. Other pages have not yet been inked at all. Only four pages fully received the final stage of colouring in

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in the last decades of the 15th century, the grandest bibliophiles were still commissioning manuscripts, and continued to do so well into the next century, from artists such as

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XXXIV. Lucifer's picture spans two pages, and lies outside the text-illustration structure, unifying the narrative of the series. It also illustrates the full story of

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with another, continuous narrative, where recurrent incidents were shown, usually unframed and in the margin below the text. Thus the principal figures of Dante,

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as illustrations, that was published by Nicholo di Lorenzo della Magna in Florence in 1481, and is mentioned by Vasari. Scholars agree that the engravings by

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XXXIV spans across two pages, and lies outside the text-illustration structure, unifying the narrative of the series. It also illustrates the full story of

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The illustration for canto XV is part of the third round of Inferno, depicting the punishment of those who acted violently against God, nature, and art.

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had become far more important than in Botticelli's day, never takes it seriously, perhaps because his own paintings did not sell well in reproduction.

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lie outside this canto-text structure, thus providing an element of continuity which unifies the work. Lucifer's second drawing by Botticelli from

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Botticelli uses thirteen drawings to illustrate the eighth circle of Hell, depicting ten chasms that Dante and Virgil descend through a ridge.

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is without gaps. The page for the drawing of canto XXXI appears blank, and the sequence ends with the unfinished drawing for canto XXXII.

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