Divine Comedy illustrated by Botticelli
The Map of Hell painting by Botticelli is one of the ninety-two drawings that were originally included in the illustrated manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
ArtistSandro Botticelli
Yearc. 1485[1]

The Divine Comedy illustrated by Botticelli is a manuscript illustrated by ninety-two pictures, mostly silverpoint drawings, by Sandro Botticelli that are considered masterpieces and amongst the best works of the Rennaisance painter.[1][2] The drawings were initially included as illustrations of a manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy.[1] The manuscript eventually disappeared and was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, having been detected in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton by Gustav Friedrich Waagen.[3]

Subsequently, the manuscript was added to the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (Museum of Prints and Drawings) by Friedrich Lippmann, the director of the museum, who in 1882 brought 85 of Botticelli's drawings;[3] Lippmann had moved swiftly and quietly, and when the sale was announced there was a considerable outcry in the British press and Parliament.[4] Soon after that, it was revealed that another eight drawings from the same manuscript were in the Vatican Library. The bound drawings were initially in the possession of Queen Christina of Sweden, and, after her death in Rome in 1686, they were bought by Pope Alexander VIII who added them to the Vatican collection. The time of separation of these drawings is unknown. The Map of Hell is in the Vatican collection.[3][5]

The drawings that were in the Berlin museum were separated post-war after the division of Germany, but the collection was re-integrated following reunification. 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 Royal Academy, in 2000 and 2001.[6]

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 proposed by Barbara Watts as a more efficient way of combining the text-illustration pairs. A volume designed to open vertically would be approximately 47 cm wide by 64 cm high, and would incorporate both the text and the illustration for each canto on a single page.

Scope and origin

Botticelli's drawings were commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. The drawings illustrate a manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy. The entire thematic sequence of each canto was supposed to be illustrated by its own full-page drawing by Botticelli. Further, there would be a minimum of two additional drawings, a map of Hell preceding Inferno, and a double-page drawing of Lucifer that depicts Dante's and Virgil's descent to Hell.[1] The text is written on the reverse of the drawings, so that it was in 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.[2]

The exact date of creation of the drawings is unknown but it is surmised that Botticelli started his work around the mid-1480s and finished them approximately a decade later.[1] 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 Primavera.[1]

The drawings commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici were not the first to be created by Botticelli for a Divine Comedy manuscript. In all likelihood, he also illustrated another Commedia in Florence that was published by Nicholo di Lorenzo della Magna in 1481. Although the drawings of this earlier work are credited to Baccio Baldini, it is now thought that due to Baldini's lack of artistic vision, and his total dependence on Botticelli as a source for his designs, the drawings for the Florence Commedia are also considered to be Botticelli's work.[1][7]

Structure and innovations

Lucifer's second drawing by Botticelli from Inferno XXXIV. Lucifer's picture, spans across two pages, and lies outside the text-illustration structure, unifiying the narrative of the series. It also illustrates the full story of Inferno canto XXXIV and shows Lucifer's geographical position in Hell.[8]

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 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.[9]

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 thematic sequence of a new canto. The text of each canto, from left to right, matches the pictorial representation when 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 Map of Hell and Lucifer lie outside this canto-text structure, thus providing an element of continuity which unifies the work.[10] Lucifer's second drawing by Botticelli from Inferno XXXIV. Lucifer's picture, spans across two pages, and lies outside the text-illustration structure, unifiying the narrative of the series. It also illustrates the full story of Inferno canto XXXIV and shows Lucifer's geographical position in Hell.[8]

Dimensions

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 94 cm 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 cm wide by 64 cm 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.[10]

Content location

The Vatican Library has the drawing of the Map Of Hell, and the illustrations for cantos I, IX, X, XII, XIII, XV and XVI of the Inferno. The Map of Hell and the drawing for canto I are drawn on each side of the same goat-skin parchment. The Berlin Museum houses the rest of the extant illustrations, including the drawing for canto VIII. The sequence of the Inferno drawings for cantos XVII to canto XXX for Paradiso is without gaps. The page for the drawing of canto XXXI appears blank, and the sequence ends with the unfinished drawing for canto XXXII.[2]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sandro Botticelli's illustrations to the Divine Comedy.
  1. ^ a b c d e f g Watts, Barbara J. (1995). "Sandro Botticelli's Drawings for Dante's "Inferno": Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design". Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 163. 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.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 [Fig. 2].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 lnferno 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 Il-VIII and XIV looked like.
  2. ^ a b c Lippmann, F. DRAWINGS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI FOR DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA (PDF). LAWRENCE AND BULLEN LONDON. p. 16. 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, [...]
  3. ^ a b c Lippmann, F. DRAWINGS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI FOR DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA (PDF). LAWRENCE AND BULLEN LONDON. p. 15.
  4. ^ Havely, R. N., Dante's British Public: Readers and Texts, from the Fourteenth Century to the Present, pp. 244-259, 2014, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199212449, 9780199212446, google books
  5. ^ 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 reverse. Lippmann, 15
  6. ^ Nigel Reynolds (7 September 2000). "Royal Academy wins battle over Botticellis". The Daily Telegraph.
  7. ^ Lippmann, F. DRAWINGS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI FOR DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA (PDF). LAWRENCE AND BULLEN LONDON. p. 20. 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 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.
  8. ^ a b Watts, Barbara J. (1995). "Sandro Botticelli's Drawings for Dante's "Inferno": Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design". Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 193.
  9. ^ Watts, Barbara J. (1995). "Sandro Botticelli's Drawings for Dante's "Inferno": Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design". Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 195–197.
  10. ^ a b Watts, Barbara J. (1995). "Sandro Botticelli's Drawings for Dante's "Inferno": Narrative Structure, Topography, and Manuscript Design". Artibus et Historiae. 16 (32): 198. 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. 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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