Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli

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.
Artist	Sandro Botticelli
Year	c. 1485

The Divine Comedy illustrated by Botticelli is a manuscript illustrated by ninety-two drawings by Sandro Botticelli that are considered masterpieces and amongst the best works of the Rennaisance master painter. The drawings were discovered in late 19th century and were initially included as illustrations of a manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy. The manuscript eventually disappeared and was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, having been detected in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton by G. F. Waagen.

Subsequently, in 1882, the manuscript was added to the collection of Kupferstichkabinett Berlin by Friedrich Lippmann, the director of the museum, who in 1882 brought 85 of Botticelli's drawings to the institute. Soon after that, it was revealed that another eight drawings from the same manuscript were being kept at the Apostolic Palace. 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.

Scope and origin

Botticelli's drawings were commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. The drawings were intended to illustrate a manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy in a unique way. 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.

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 approximmately a decade later. Botticelli never completed the task. Many of the illustrations are not completely penciled-in and illumination is completed for only four of them. However, the drawings are of such artistry and beauty, that are considered "central to Botticelli's artistic achievement" and no less important than the Primavera.

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, Italy that was published by Nicholo di Lorenzo della Magna in 1481. Although the drawings of this earlier edition 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.

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.

Botticelli's manuscripy incorporates 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.

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 binds the work together.

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 in 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.