Botticelli does Dante

December 31, 2023 12:00 PM

An early graphic novel. Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (1445–1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. He is perhaps best known (now) for creating one of the most famous paintings in the world, "The Birth of Venus", but strangely, it was some of his long-lost unfinished drawings that struck the imagination of the Pre-Raphaelites of Victorian England who championed him and revived his reputation.

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (1445–1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. He is perhaps best known (now) for creating one of the most famous paintings in the world, "The Birth of Venus", but strangely, it was some of his long-lost unfinished drawings that struck the imagination of the Pre-Raphaelites of Victorian England who championed him and revived his reputation.

Some of Botticelli's drawings are featured in a current art exhibit in San Fransisco's Legion of Honor. The New York Times article about it gives a brief description of the drawings and Botticelli's career, but as an aside, mentions that you ought to check out the drawings Botticelli made for Dante's "Divine Comedy" and links to a very good Google arts and culture site and to a webinar on the drawings and their mysterious history. The unfinished nature of the drawings and the merging of different time-frames in a single drawing make them look like a graphic novel of today.

posted by acrasis (5 comments total)

These are incredible. Would like to see them inked and colored like a graphic novel!
posted by donuy at 1:33 PM on December 31, 2023

If you like this, maybe Walter Moers' "A wild ride through the night" might be interesting - although Gustave Doré did his prints a few centuries later.
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posted by flamewise at 2:22 PM on December 31, 2023

Very nice! Thank you, acrasis. I’d seen plenty of other Botticelli, of course, but not these drawings, I don’t think. I do tend to like both proto- and post- work, the ghosts and forerunners of much better known stuff, or parallel evolution, and this does feel like the echo of another timeline.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:54 PM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

cupcakeninja, I had never heard of these, either. My wobbly mental timelines of artists and writers don't often intersect, so it never occurred to me that Botticelli would have admired Dante. As a kid I thrilled to Gustave Dore's prints, flamewise, but it was interesting to see what a contemporary made of Satan. Dante's image of him is fine on the written page, but hard to put on paper.
posted by acrasis at 6:53 PM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

it was some of his long-lost unfinished drawings that struck the imagination of the Pre-Raphaelites of Victorian England

though The Birth of Venus has also attracted its share of inspired derivative works.
posted by flabdablet at 10:22 PM on December 31, 2023