Tea at Trianon: Botticelli’s Depiction of Dante’s Inferno

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Botticelli’s Depiction of Dante’s Inferno

From Medium:

In the 15th century, Botticelli (the pioneer of colorful and aesthetically pleasing paintings including The Birth of Venus and Primavera) was commissioned to depict Dante’s Divine Comedy on canvas. Translating words of such a complex narrative was not only an ambitious project but also a time-consuming activity. Unsurprisingly, it almost took a decade for Botticelli to interpret and visualize each canto and create a thematic sequence of drawings.
These drawings were lost for more than 400 years until in the 19th century, eighty-five sheets were found and auctioned by the Scottish Duke of Hamilton to Friedrich Lippmann, then the Director of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinet. The rest seven of the drawings were found in the Vatican with the Map of Hell housed in the Vatican collection.
This article would explore the conception and technique of the Divine Comedy drawings, Botticelli’s pictorial depiction of Dante’s Inferno, and what motivated Botticelli to paint such dark and disturbing drawings of hell. (Read more.)