Abstract
ABSTRACT The article carries out a close, comparative reading of two modern illuminated editions of the Vita nova by an Arts and Crafts artist, namely Phoebe Anna Traquair (1902) and a London-based art professional, Evelyn Paul (1916). After a short reconstruction of the historical and social context fostering the revival of illumination in mid-to-late Victorian Britain, the article unpacks the inner mechanism of pictorial, decorative, and typographical mediation that the two illuminators designed to translate the verbal sign and convey a distinctive visual interpretation of the libello. It considers how their editions introduced the ‘elite arts of poetry’ and manuscript illumination within the intellectual and economic reach of the middle-class mass public seeking cultural cultivation. It ponders how these popular artefacts mediated Dante’s book of poetry for a whole new reading public.
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