Sandro Botticelli's illustrations forInfernoVIII and IX: Narrative revision and the role of manuscript tradition

Abstract

Abstract In Purgatorio XI, Dante meets the famed thirteenth-century illuminator, Oderisi da Gubbio, whose pride has brought him low. The penitent humbly acknowledges that the field he once held has been taken by Franco of Bologna, and he delivers a powerful apostrophe on the vanity of earthly ambition and the transience of fame.1 Sandro Botticelli doubtlessly recalled this passage from Dante's Commedia when making his illustrations for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici's sumptuous codex of Dante's poem,2 which today is in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Muse en zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Ham. 201 [Cim. 33]) and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Reg. Lat. 1896).3 The scope of the project- over roo full-page, folio-size illuminations- suggests that he, like Oderisi, felt the ardor to outshine raging in his bosom.4 The usual assessment of his Inferno illustrations, however, suggests that Botticelli took Oderisi's words too much to heart, for they are judged to reflect rather than outs...