I. Figura Universale Della Divina Commedia [Overview of the Divine Comedy]
- Title:
- I. Figura Universale Della Divina Commedia [Overview of the Divine Comedy]
- Alternate Title:
- [Overview of the Divine Comedy]
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Caetani, Michelangelo
- Date:
- 1872
- Posted Date:
- 2015-08-25
- ID Number:
- 1071.01
- File Name:
- PJM_1071_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1800 - 1869
- Materials/Techniques:
- chromolithographs
- Subject:
- Religion
Heaven and Hell
Allegorical - Measurement:
- 24.5 x 17.5 on sheet 32 x 23 (centimeters, height x width)
- Description:
- Plate I
- 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. Although illustrations of Manetti's analyses were not published in his lifetime, his work was known to his fellow Florentine Sandro Botticelli, and it provided the basis for his famous "Carte de l'Enfer" (c.1485). Parker 2013, 88-89 & n.10.
When an illustrated version of Manetti's work first appeared c.1506, it included "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. These "detailed illustrations . . . created a new set of intellectual and aesthetic expectations among readers." From "the first two centuries of printing history, publishers introduced numerous technical innovations to accommodate the new ways in which the poem was being interpreted," including "the design of illustrations." Alverez [2022]. Indeed, the history of these maps over the centuries traces as well the history of printing, reflected in works from the collection.
The first published 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.)
As copper-plate engraving supplanted woodcuts in illustrated editions of The Divine Comedy, artists expanded their mapping beyond the cartography of Hell. An example is an 1811 edition in the collection with maps of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise by Giovani Antonio Zuliani. The medium of engraving allowed the creation of maps with more detail, such as Zuliani's inclusion of small figures of Dante and Virgil (labelled "D" and "V") as they journey through Hell (ID #2519.01) and Purgatory ((ID #2519.02), and of Dante and Beatrice ("D" and "B") as she guides him to Paradise (ID #2519.03). For another engraved overview of Paradise, see ID #1041.01 (Bettoni, 1825).
Three and a half centuries after Manetti's vision was first published, it took on new form in the hands of Michelangelo Caetani, the Duke of Sermoneta, a political figure and Dante scholar. His work, "La Materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri Dichiarata in VI Tavole" [The Substance of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy Described in VI Plates], was published in Rome in 1855. ID ##2517.01-.11. The centerpiece of this slim volume consists of six lithographed, hand-colored, folio-size plates. Three of these plates describe the Inferno: a plan view (ID #2517.08), a cross section (ID #2517.09), and a table relating the "Moral Content of Hell" to the "Form of the Poem" (Plate II, ID #2517.07). There is also a view of Purgatory (ID #2517.10), one of Paradise (ID #2517.11), and a comprehensive overview (ID #2517.06). Preceding this is a two-page Prologue and "Exposition of the VI Plates" signed by Caetani and Paolo Emilio Castagnola, a Roman poet and teacher (ID ##2517.04-.05). A note at the foot of plate II says that "the red [text] shows the subject matter of the [Exposition], the black writing the forms of the Poem."
This illustration is from a second version of this work produced by Caetani using the then-novel technology of chromolithography (ID ##1071.01-.07). This version contains the same six plates and textual explanation; it was produced in a somewhat smaller format by the monks at Monte Cassino, "Cromo-Litografi Cassinese." This work is undated, and various libraries have set it at times between c.1855 and c.1890. However, it can now be definitively dated 1872 by virtue of a contemporaneous report (among other "Current Events of the Literary World'') that "the Benedictines of Montecassino are publishing, reproduced in chromolithographs, the six plates by Michelangelo Caetani in which the substance of Dante Alighiere's Divine Comedy is described" along with "a Prologue, an Exposition and a Corollary, which explain them with singular brevity." L'Universo Illustrato, an. vi, n. 47, p. 758 (Milan: August 18, 1872). Later editions of the Caetani Materia were produced in Rome and Florence, all in smaller formats with folding plates.
For similar views from later in the 19th century, see ID ##2318.01-.02
For critical views on the notion of mapping the Inferno from the text of Dante, see Gilbert 1945; Kleiner 1994.
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:
- Caetani, Michelangelo. La materia della Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri dichiarata in VI tavole da Michelangelo Caetani. Montecassino: Monaci benedettini di Montecassino.
- Repository:
- Private Collection of PJ Mode
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.