PDF] Illustrations for Dante＇s Inferno： A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro

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Last updated 17 abril 2025

PDF] Illustrations for Dante＇s Inferno： A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro

This essay is twofold: the first part focuses on the interpretation of the concept of Hell in Dante’s Inferno and Italian culture as depicted in Last Judgment scenes such as Giotto’s in the Arena Chapel of Padua; Signorelli’s in the Orvieto Cathedral; and Michelangelo’s in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The second part deals with the drawing illustrations for the text of Dante’s Divine Comedy composed by the Florentine painters Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Here the emphasis is on Dante’s Inferno, which comments upon Neoplatonic personalities, Florentine politics, and current popular art. Comparisons with some of Botticelli’s, Stradano’s, and Zuccaro’s drawing illustrations indicate the assimilation of classical artistic concepts such as Horace’s ut pictura poesis [as is painting so is poetry] as well as Plato’s furor poeticus [poetical inspiration] promoted in the writings of Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance Neoplatonic philosopher.