The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Folio 11)

The masterpiece of the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy was the most widely illuminated book of medieval literature, embraced as a subject for manuscript illumination within a decade of the author’s death. Conceived as an epic poem in three parts - Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) - which are in turn subdivided into short sections called cantos, the Comedy is Dante’s personal account of a vision that he had during Holy Week in the year 1300.

The codex in New Haven is one of the finest examples of early Divine Comedy manuscripts to have survived, its remarkable state of preservation allowing full appreciation of the brilliant decoration and regular, harmonious writing. Conforming to an early type of Divine Comedy illustration, the illuminations are confined to the first page of each book, rather than to the whole text, as in later.

On folio 11, within an orange initial N (“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” [In the middle of the journey of our life]), marking the beginning of the first canto of the Inferno, appears an enthroned figure of Divine Justice. Winged, with a polygonal nimbus framing her head, and wearing a white and pink gown lined with green, she is seated on a lion, bearing a raised sword in her right hand and scales in her left. The brilliant palette, large, simplified forms and schematic rendering of the features are clear indicators of Don Simone’s authorship.