La materia della Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri dichiarata in VI tavole da Michelangelo Caetani [The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Described in Six Plates by Michelangelo Caetani]
- Title:
- La materia della Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri dichiarata in VI tavole da Michelangelo Caetani [The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Described in Six Plates by Michelangelo Caetani]
- Alternate Title:
- [The Divine Comedy Described in Six Plates]
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Caetani, Michelangelo
- Other Creators:
- D. Oderisio Piscicelli Taeggi, artist
- Date:
- 1872
- Posted Date:
- 2015-08-25
- ID Number:
- 1071.07
- File Name:
- PJM_1071_07.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)
- 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. The collection includes a number of maps illustrating Dante's cosmography, published in a variety of formats over more than 350 years. (Search > "Dante"). For a comprehensive summary, see ID #1071.01, "Figura Universale Della Divina Commedia [Overview of the Divine Comedy]" (1872).
Manetti's original maps of Hell were first published c.1506 in woodblock form (ID ##1004.01-.07). Three and a half centuries later, Manetti's vision took 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). This folio-sized work includes six lithographed, hand-colored plates, including maps of Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, and a comprehensive cosmographic overview.
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 reporting (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, a. vi, n. 47, p. 758 (Milan: August 18, 1872).
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.