The Early Printed Illustrations of Dante’s "Commedia"

The Early Printed Illustrations of Dante’s
Author: Matthew Collins
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2024-12-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0268208395

The Early Printed Illustrations of Dante’s “Commedia” provides the first systematic overview of the earliest illustrated editions of Dante’s poem, stretching from 1481 through 1596, and features over 230 illustrations. Developing a series of interdisciplinary methods for studying early printed book illustrations, Matthew Collins explores the visual sources for the first illustrated editions of the Commedia, their narrative qualities, and their influence on Renaissance readers. He traces the visual genealogies that link these images to each other and to renderings of the poem in other media, including illuminated manuscripts and drawings, such as those by Sandro Botticelli. Collins additionally delves into a group of cartographically oriented renderings of Dante’s afterlife, interpreting them in the context of the Age of Exploration. He addresses the utilitarian aspect of the illustrations as well by revealing the multidimensional role that these images played for Renaissance readers, particularly emphasizing their pedagogical and mnemonic uses. Of value to numerous disciplines, The Early Printed Illustrations of Dante’s “Commedia” fills a gap in Dante studies and will inspire similar investigations into the visual representation of other literary works in the age of early print.

Reading Dante with Images

Reading Dante with Images
Author: Matthew Collins
Publisher: Harvey Miller
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2021-12-16
Genre: Illumination of books and manuscripts
ISBN: 9781912554508

This volume contains an unprecedented meeting of two major traditions, each of which are forms of careful engagement with Dante's Commedia: the Lectura Dantis, and the illustrations of this work. The Lectura Dantis, initiated by Giovanni Boccaccio in the fourteenth century, consists of a canto by canto study of Dante's poem. The history of Commedia illustration has equally deep roots, as illuminated manuscripts of the text were being produced within decades of the work's completion in 1321. While both of these traditions have continued, mostly uninterruptedly, for more than six hundred years, they have never been directly brought together. In this volume, Dante scholars take on a single canto of the Commedia of their choosing, reading not just the text, but also exploring the illustrations of their selected text to form multifaceted and multi-layered visual-textual readings. In addition to enlivening the Lectura Dantis, and confronting the illustrated tradition of the poem in a new fashion, these studies present a variety of approaches to studying not just the Commedia but any illustrated literary work through a serious inquiry into the words themselves as well as the images that these words have inspired.

Freedom Readers

Freedom Readers
Author: Dennis Looney
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780268033866

Introduction. Canonicity, hybridity, freedom ; Sailing with Dante to the new world ; The Dante wax museum on the frontier, 1828 -- Colored Dante. Dante the Protestant. Abolitionists and nationalists, Americans and Italians ; H. Cordelia Ray, William Wells Brown -- Negro Dante. Educating the people: from Cicero to Du Bois ; African American filmmaker at the gates of Hell ; Spencer Williams ; Dante meets Amos 'n' Andy ; Ralph Waldo Ellison's prophetic vernacular muse -- Black Dante. LeRoi Jones, The system of Dante's hell ; A new narrative model ; Amiri Baraka: From Dante's system to the system -- African American Dante. Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills ; Multicolored, Multicultural Terza Rima ; Toni Morrison, The Bluest eye ; Dante Rap -- Poets in exile.

The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy
Author: Dante Alighieri
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1616401443

Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf. Volume XX features The Divine Comedy, the masterpiece by Italian poet DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321). Written in the vernacular-a groundbreaking step for literature-it is considered the greatest work in the Italian language and an important explication of the medieval mindset, particularly regarding religion. The journey of Dante, as his own fictional protagonist, through the afterlife has inspired writers from Geoffrey Chaucer to T.S. Eliot to today's popular novelists, filmmakers and videogame designers, and continues to profoundly influence modern ideas of heaven and hell.

The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy

The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy
Author: Gustave Doré
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2012-09-21
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0486129934

These 135 fantastic scenes depict the passion and grandeur of Dante's masterpiece — from the depths of hell onto the mountain of purgatory and up to the empyrean realms of paradise.

Treasures from UCL

Treasures from UCL
Author: Gillian Furlong
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 99
Release: 2015-06-04
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1910634018

UCL has one of the foremost university Special Collections in the UK. It is a treasure trove of national and international importance, comprising over a million items dating from the 4th-century AD to the present day. Treasures from UCL draws together detailed descriptions and images of 70 of the most prized items. Between the magnificent illuminated Latin Bible of the 13th-century and the personal items of one of the 20th-century’s greatest writers, George Orwell, the many highlights of this remarkable collection will delight and intrigue anyone who picks up this book.

The Ancient Flame

The Ancient Flame
Author: Winthrop Wetherbee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2008
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Winthrop Wetherbee's study of Dante's relationship to the classical Latin poets--Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius--is a genuine tour-de-force.

Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno
Author: Dante Alighieri
Publisher: FilRougeViceversa
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2019-10-10
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 3966619318

"IN the midway of this our mortal life,I found me in a gloomy wood, astrayGone from the path direct: and e'en to tellIt were no easy task, how savage wildThat forest, how robust and rough its growth,Which to remember only, my dismay...

Visual Cultures of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe

Visual Cultures of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe
Author: Timothy McCall
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0271091142

Secrets in all their variety permeated early modern Europe, from the whispers of ambassadors at court to the emphatically publicized books of home remedies that flew from presses and booksellers’ shops. This interdisciplinary volume draws on approaches from art history and cultural studies to investigate the manifestations of secrecy in printed books and drawings, staircases and narrative paintings, ecclesiastical furnishings and engravers’ tools. Topics include how patrons of art and architecture deployed secrets to construct meanings and distinguish audiences, and how artists and patrons manipulated the content and display of the subject matter of artworks to create an aura of exclusive access and privilege. Essays examine the ways in which popes and princes skillfully deployed secrets in works of art to maximize social control, and how artists, printers, and folk healers promoted their wares through the impression of valuable, mysterious knowledge. The authors contributing to the volume represent both established authorities in their field as well as emerging voices. This volume will have wide appeal for historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introducing readers to a fascinating and often unexplored component of early modern culture.