The Iconography of the Mythological Characters in the Divine Comedy Manuscripts of the 14th-15th Centuries: Functions and Iconographical Sources

Autori

  • Anna Pozhidaeva HSE University Moscow
  • Alina Miroshnik HSE University Moskow

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54103/fenestella/21455

Parole chiave:

Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri, Mythological characters, Medieval Iconography, Medieval manuscripts, Miniature painting, History of Medieval Art, Divine Commedy

Abstract

The history of illustration of Dante’s Divine Comedy in the 14th-15th centuries rarely attracts the attention of researchers. Nevertheless, a careful analysis of some manuscripts would clarify the genesis process of specific iconographic schemes within the framework of a very specific task: illustrating a text replete with figures of speech and references to ancient sources that were often unknown to the iconography designer. This contribute is devoted to the iconography of mythological characters found in Dante’s text and their visual sources based on a few manuscripts of the Divine Comedy dated from mid-14th and 15th centuries, six of which are fully illustrated.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Apollodorus, The Library, Book III, trans. by James George Frazer. www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, trans. by Theodolinda Barolini. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine–comedy/inferno

Dante. Cantica dell’Inferno con commenti di Fra Guidone Pisano. www.dante.unina.it/public/preview/preview/idMs/278132

Dante’s Teacher: Brunetto Latini, Trésor, ed. by A. Granacki. https://sites.duke.edu/danteslibrary/brunetto–latini–tresor

Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. by Sir S. Garth, J. Dryden et alii. http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.8.eighth.html

Plutarch, Theseus, trans. by John Dryden. http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/theseus.html

Virgil, The Aeneid, Book VI, trans. by John Dryden. http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html

Auerbach E., Figurative Texts Illustrating Certain Passages of Dante’s Commedia, «Speculum» 21/4 (1946): 474-489.

Austin H.D., The Arrangement of Dante’s Purgatorial Reliefs, «PMLA» 47/1 (1932): 1-9.

Austin H.D., Three Dante Notes, «Italica» 13/1 (1936): 1-5.

Balbarini C., L'Inferno di Chantilly. Cultura artistica e letteraria a Pisa nella prima metà del Trecento, Roma 2011.

Barolini T., Minos’s Tail: The Labor of Devising Hell (Inferno 5.1-24), «Romanic Review» 87/4 (1996): 437-454.

Bertelli S., I manoscritti della «Commedia» in Emilia-Romagna, in Dante e la Divina Commedia in Emilia-Romagna: testimonianze dantesche negli archivi e nelle biblioteche, Milano 2021.

Bibor M., Németh K., Kiszl P., Italian codices in Eötvös Loránd University Library, Budapest. Bibliothecae.It 11/1 (2022): 40-111.

Boespflug F., Le dogme trinitaire et l'essor de son iconographie en Occident de l'époque carolingienne au IVe Concile du Latran, «Cahiers de civilisation médiévale» 147 (1994): 181-240.

Botterill S., The Form of Dante’s Minotaur, «Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies» 22/1 (1988): 60-76.

Brieger P.H., Meiss M., Singleton Ch., Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, Princeton 1969.

Brilli E., Fenelli L., Wolf G., Images and words in exile. Avignon and Italy during the first half of the 14th century, Firenze 2015.

Brumble H., Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: A Dictionary of Allegorical Meanings, Milton Park 1998.

Сirulli M., La figura di Gerione: nuove prospettive nella critica dantesca, Master Thesis, Alma Mater Bologna, 2014-2015.

Collins M., The Forgotten Morgana Dante Drawings, their Influence on the Marcolini Commedia of 1544, and their Place within a Visually-Driven Discourse on Dante’s Poem, «Dante’s Studies» (2018) 136: 93-132.

Cornish A. Furies, The Dante Encyclopedia, ed. by R. Lansing, London 2010: p. 429.

Delcorno K., Dante e l’exemplum medievale, «Lettere Italiane» 35/1 (1983): 3-28.

Draskóczy E., Representation of the Damned and the Infernal Guardians in Codex Italicus 1, Pisa 2020.

Eisner M., The Materiality of the Text and Manuscript Culture, in The Oxford Handbook of Dante, ed. by M. Gragnolati, E. Lombardi,

F. Southerden, Oxford 2021: 1-15.

Ferrante G., Perna C., Illuminated Dante project, DSU-DILBEC 2021 https://www.dante.unina.it/public/pagine/manoscritti

Forte A., La rappresentazione del Minotauro dantesco nei manoscritti trecenteschi della Commedia tra commento scritto e commento figurato, «L'Alighieri» 44, 2014: 37-58

Friedman J.B., Antichrist and the Iconography of Dante's Geryon, «Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes» 35 (1972): 108-122.

Fugelso K., Engaging the Viewer: Reading Structures and Narrative Strategies in Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, PhD. Diss, Columbia University 1999.

Fugelso K. Pictorial Treachery as Narrative Faithfulness: Virgil’s Gaze in British Library MS Yates Thompson 36, Towson 2010.

Gillerman D.H., Trecento Illustrators of the «Divine Comedy», «Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society» 118 (2000): 129-165.

Gurevich A., Kul’tura i obshestvo srednevekovoy Evropy glazami sovremennikov, Moscow 1989.

Hollander J., The Poetic Ekphrasis, «Word and Image» 4 (1988): 209-219.

Hollander J., Dante’s Use of Aeneid in Inferno I and II, «Comparative Literature» 20/2 (1968): 142-156.

Kessler H.L., An Eleventh-century Ivory Plaque from South Italy and the Cassinese Revival, «Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen» 8/1 (1966): 67-95.

Kozlova S., «Ut pictura poesis»: literatura ot Danre do Ariosto v izobrazitel’nom iskusstve italyanskogo Vozrozhdeniya, Moscow 2021.

Le Goff J., The Birth of Purgatory, Chicago 1984.

Owen R., Dante’s Reception by 14th and 15th century Illustrators of the Commedia, «Reading Medieval Studies» 27 (2001): 163-225.

Panofsky E., Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in Renaissance Art, New York – Oxford UP 1939.

Papillo P.J. Illuminating Commedy: Artistic Strategy and Rhetoric in Pierpont Morgan Library’s MS. M. 676 and Botticelli’s Dante, PhD. Diss, Columbia University 2003.

Pasquini L., Iconografie dantesche. Dalla luce del mosaico all'immagine profetica. Ravenna, Angelo Longo editore 2008.

Pegoretti A., Or ti riman, lettor, sovra’l tuo banco. Il Ms. Egerton 943 della British Library, PhD. Diss, Università degli studi di Pisa 2009.

Pegoretti A., Un Dante «Domenicano»: La Commedia Egerton 943 della British Library, in Dante visualizzato, ed. by R. Arqués Corominas and M. Ciccuto, Firenze 2017.

Porcari C., Minotaurs & Geryons: The Symbolic Monsters of Violence and Fraud in the Sources, in the Dante’s Lines of and in Their Literary or Visual Comments, University of Calgari, Lecture Paper, Calgary 2018.

Pope-Hennessy J., Paradiso: The Illuminations to Dante’s Divine Comedy by Giovanni di Paolo, New York 1993.

Pozhidaeva A., Sotvorenie mira v ikonographii srednevekovogo Zapada, Moscow 2021.

Seznec J., The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art, Princeton 1995.

Terzoli M.A., Visibile Parlare: ecfrasi e scrittura nella «Commedia», in Dante und die bildenden Künste. Dialoge – Spiegelungen –

Transformationen, ed. by M.A. Terzoli and S. Schütze, Berlin 2016: 23-48.

Ulivi F., Dante e l’interpretazione figurativa, «Convivium» 34 (1966): 269-292.

Volkmann L., Iconografia dantesca. Le rappresentazioni figurative della Divina commedia, Firenze 1898.

Volkmann L., Bildliche Darstellungen zu Dante's Divina Commedia bis zum Ausgang der Renaissance, Leipzig 1892.

Williams E., Speak of the Devil: A Brief Look at the History and Origins of Iconography of the Devil from Antiquity to Renaissance, Carson City 2004.

Dante, Virgilio e il Minotauro

Pubblicato

2024-06-22

Fascicolo

Sezione

Articoli