Untitled [The First Five Circles]
- Title:
- Untitled [The First Five Circles]
- Alternate Title:
- The First Five Circles
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Manetti, Antonio, 1423-1497
- Date:
- 1506
- Posted Date:
- 2015-08-25
- ID Number:
- 1004.04
- Collection Number:
- 8548
- File Name:
- PJM_1004_04.jpg
- Style/Period:
- Before 1800
- Subject:
- Religion
Heaven and Hell
Allegorical - Measurement:
- 10 x 9 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- The tantalizing details in Dante's Divine Comedy led a number of medieval scholars and artists to seek geographic and cosmographic knowledge from the work. "During the fifteenth century, the Florentine architect and mathematician Antonio Manetti decided that one could gather the information presented in [The Inferno] and extrapolate from it to map out precisely the size, shape and location of Dante's Hell." Padron 2007, 261. The collection includes a number of maps illustrating Dante's cosmography, published in a variety of formats over more than 350 years. (Search > "Dante"). For a comprehensive summary, see ID #1071.01, "Figura Universale Della Divina Commedia [Overview of the Divine Comedy]" (1872).
This is one of seven maps that appeared in the first illustrated version of Manetti's work, published c.1506, "the first printed maps of Dante's hell and, as such, the beginning of a venerable tradition." Cachey 2007, 453; Parker 87-89. See generally Padron, 260-65; Ortolja-Baird 2022, 44,47. This work was edited by Girolamo Benivieni and entitled "Dialogo di Antonio Manetti: Cittadino fiorentino circa al sito, forma, & misure del lo inferno di Dante Alighieri poeta excellentissimo" [Dialogue of Antonio Manetti, Florentine Citizen, Concerning the Site, Form and Measurements of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri, Most Excellent Poet]. It contains seven crude woodcut maps of Hell (ID ##1004.01-.07). One woodblock, illustrating the First Five Circles of Hell, was printed upside down. (ID #1004.04.)
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Benivieni, Girolamo. Dialogo di Antonio Manetti: Cittadino fiorentino circa al sito, forma, & misure del lo infero di Dante Alighieri poeta excellentissimo. Florence: F. di Giunta. Manetti's work was published in 1506 with an edition of the Divine Comedy
the copy in the collection is from a separate edition, undated, which "may be of about 1520." Gilbert 1945, 289 n. 3. - Cite As:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography, #8548. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.