The last cantos of the Purgatory and Paradise are in red. The Inferno was drawn in two-tones (red and black) the purgatory in brown ink, because that was the preferred medium for the depiction of natural, diffused light. Notably, Zuccari employed three different techniques for each canticle.

The extant drawings of Botticelli’s cycle, in fact, while predating Zuccari’s, were only published in 1887. In fact, up until the 1800s, the visual-arts fortune the Commedia enjoyed was mostly tied to individual artworks referencing or inspired by it. One great exception to the Dante pictorial tradition until the 1800s comes from the late mannerist Federico Zuccari (1540-1609). Unfortunately, the manuscript eventually disappeared, though it was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century. Sandro Botticelli was the first serial artist of the poem: he provided illustrations-mostly executed with pen and ink-to Cristoforo Landino’s edition, showing great understanding of the work. “Artists don’t just depict, they interpret,” she said.Īrtists in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries produced miniatures and illuminated manuscripts by the dozen. Doré, for example, added more women among the damned. Gustave Doré and Sandro Botticelli-she cites as examples-while generally faithful to Dante’s text, also introduced changes to their works. “Many artists introduce changes, some subtle, others more striking,” she continued. “Dante’s imaginative comparisons and vivid descriptions of the afterlife have sparked the imaginations of innumerable artists,” Deborah Parker, Professor of Italian at the University of Virginia, tells Art & Object.

Painters have long recognized the importance of understanding the source material intimately: through their execution, they sought to transcribe the poet’s vision. “Artists in all media have responded to the Commedia with an abundance and enthusiasm that even the Bible has not matched,” writes Jean-Pierre Barricelli in the paper “Dante in the Arts: A Survey” published in the 1996 edition of Dante Studies. Ever since Dante’s Divine Comedy was published, it both ascended to the canon of Western literature and inspired countless artistic interpretations of the poet’s journey through the otherworld as he and his guides traverse the depths of Hell, climb Mount Purgatory, and then ascend to Paradise.

The divine comedy paintings