If you are interested in reading a good, easy to understand rendition of The Divine Comedy which includes several drawings selected from Botticelli’s series of illustrations, we recommend the Mandelbaum edition. Whereas previous artists had decorated manuscripts of The Divine Comedy as well, Botticelli’s drawings were very detailed and exceptionally faithful to Dante’s epic.

The Abyss of Hell, or Map of Hell, is among those currently preserved in Rome. Seven parchments are kept in the Vatican Library in Rome and eighty-five are at the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) in Berlin. The drawings bewtween Rome and BerlinĬurrently, we are aware of the existence of ninety-two parchments, which were discovered and became famous only in the mid-nineteenth century. Having completed the work assigned to him, he returned at once to Florence, where, being whimsical and eccentric, he occupied himself with commenting on a certain part of Dante, illustrating the Inferno, and executing prints, over which he wasted much time, and, neglecting his proper occupation, he did no work, and thereby caused infinite disorder in his affairs. Our most important early source on Botticelli’s Divine Comedy drawings is the Italian artist and historian Giorgio Vasari, who wrote in 1550 in his The Lives of the Artists that This project reflects the revival of interest in Dante Alighieri in late fifteenth century Florence.

He created his drawings for some of the engravings by goldsmith and etcher Baccio Baldini, which decorated the 1481 edition of The Divine Comedy published in Florence for Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna, with commentary by Cristoforo Landino.

The famous painter Sandro Botticelli, whose real name was Alessandro Filipepi, was born in Florence in 1445 and died there in 1510.

2 The drawings bewtween Rome and Berlin.

El inferno torrent