Dante visualizzato. Carte ridenti II: XV secolo. Prima parte
Marcello Ciccuto and Leyla M.G. Livraghi, eds.
Florence: Franco Cesati, 2019. 407 pp. €50.
Dante visualizzato. Carte ridenti III: XV secolo. Seconda parte
Rossend Arqués Corominas and Sabrina Ferrara, eds.
Florence: Franco Cesati, 2019. 310 pp. €50.
Dante’s Commedia is surely one of the most fascinating and evocative poems which naturally attracted the interests of readers, book owners and publishers for the manifold applications its verses experienced, and still experience, in the field of illustrations. Thus, the importance of the book series Dante visualizzato is to collect studies, insights and accurate contributions about the role and the forms illustrations played in the transmission of Dante’s work.
In particular, volumes Carte ridenti II and III collect the proceedings of two international conferences: the first, held in Florence on April 18-20, 2016, was focused on the first half of the fifteenth century (without however neglecting the late 14th) and Commedia manuscript production; the second, held in Tours and Paris between May 31 and June 3, 2017, moved to the second half of the fifteenth century, consequently considering both manuscripts and printed books. The main feature of both volumes is their multidisciplinary approach, involving codicology, history of art, literature, digital humanities etc.: even though many contributions deal with different case studies or areas, the reader will perceive an atmosphere of continuous dialogue, a fil rouge which goes beyond the common subject.
So, that said, contributions on wider subjects are numerous and rich. In Carte ridenti II: Marisa Boschi Rotiroti and Francesca Pasut (pp. 11-33) analyze manuscripts of Dante’s Commedia produced in Florence between the second half of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century; Chiara Ponchia (pp. 35-46) focuses on iconographical strategies and representations in Commedia manuscript transmission, examining also two examples (Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B.R. 39 and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, It. 78); Paolo Procaccioli (pp. 119-132) investigates the still obscure topic of the lecturae Dantis in the first part of the fifteenth century, in order to find a link with contemporary illustration trends; Marco Cursi and Luisa Miglio (pp. 179-201) present their research on Commedia manuscripts in mercantesca script, focusing on the first half of the fifteenth century (not a particularly rich period for this kind of production) and analyzing some interesting cases. In Carte ridenti III: Gennaro Ferrante (pp. 35-53) shows the influence iconography of Dante’s Commedia exerted on illustrators of Vergil’s Aeneid; Matthew Collins (pp. 115-133) investigates genealogic relationships between illuminated manuscripts and incunables; Maria Maślanka-Soro (pp. 209-225) and Angelo Eugenio Mecca (pp. 255-269) reflect on the role of illustrations in text interpretation and philological studies; Giancarlo Petrella (pp. 227-253) examines editions of illustrated Commedia, starting from the Florentine 1481 edition up to the 1491 Venice one.
Contributions on single case studies, particular manuscripts and editions, or very specific themes are even more richly represented. In Carte ridenti II: Anna Pegoretti (pp. 47-72) studies what is considered the first topo-chronography of Dante’s Commedia, Cammino di Dante, written by the Florentine notary Piero Bonaccorsi in the 1430s; Joan Molina Figueras (pp. 73-89) and Vincenzo Vitale (pp. 91-118) examine the illuminated manuscript London, British Library, Yates Thompson 36, owned by Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon King of Naples and presented here as an example of political representation; Andrea Improta (pp. 133-142) shows the late 1 fourteenth-century codex Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Gg.3.6, connecting it to Ugolino III Lord of Foligno and Federico Frezzi, author of Quadriregio; Gianni Pittiglio (pp. 143-163) analyses the manuscript Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 10057 and its illustrations, in order to look for their sources in commentaries, such as the one by Giovanni da Serravalle, and enlightening their anti-Papal critical attitude; Susy Marcon (pp. 165-178) moves the attention to the Istrian environment, studying two illuminated manuscripts of the Commedia written by chancellor Pietro Campenni between the late Trecento and the following century; Eva Ponzi (pp. 203-213) underlines the old-fashioned illumination style in the Ott. lat. 2863 of the Vatican Library; Salvatore Sansone (pp. 215-228) studies the representation of the last Purgatorio cantos in some manuscripts; Gennaro Ferrante (pp. 229-255) and Ciro Perna (pp. 257-264) talk about the possibilities the Illuminated Dante Project (IDP) can provide in manuscript studies, introducing the reader to the field of digital humanities; Anna Perriccioli Saggese (pp. 265-276) focuses on the illustrations contained in the manuscript M.676 of the Morgan Library; even the world of modern book selling and book collecting is represented thanks to Daniele Guernelli’s essay (pp. 277-289). In Carte ridenti III: Claudia Cieri Via (pp. 15-33) and Giulia Puma (pp. 55-72) study the illuminated Urb. lat. 365, commissioned by Federico da Montefeltro Duke of Urbino in 1474, showing its importance, its complexity and its role as iconographical model; Florence, Landino’s commentary and illustrations by Baldini for the 1481 edition of the Commedia appear in contributions by Paolo Procaccioli (pp. 73-94) and Marcello Ciccuto (pp. 95-100); Beatrice Arduini (pp. 101-114) introduces the eclectic figure of Antonio Manetti; Luca Marcozzi (pp. 135-159) and Silvia Maddalo (pp. 193-207) study the incunable of Dante’s main poem illuminated by Antonio Grifo; Gianni Pittiglio (pp. 161-192) is interested on how Paradiso was represented in incunables printed in Venice in 1491.
These dense volumes begin with an introductory premise by the editors and end with a bibliography and rich indexes: names and places, manuscripts and Dante’s quotes in vols. II and III; incunables of the Commedia, illuminated incunables and other incunables only in vol. III. Since indexes provide a valuable and fundamental help to consultation, the main argument of these books might have been even more fulfilling by adding an index of the illustrations.
Overall, these two volumes give the reader a great and accurate collection of insights on illustration of Dante’s verses in the fifteenth century, blending multiple disciplines and connecting manuscripts and printing.
Stefano Cassini, Catholic University of Milan