For Reading Room Only . i'/ii This book is DUE on the last date stamped below SOUTHERN B UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES. CALIF. r* ^ Iconografia Dantesca Limited Edition of 250 Numbered Copies No. 7 Iconog^rafiao Dantesca THE PICTORIAL REPRESENTATIONS DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY Ludwig Volkmann . F. V I S E D AND AUGMENTED H V THE AUTHOR WITH A PREFACE CHARLES SAROLHA Ph D., D.LiTT. I-ectiticf in the Ficncli Language and Literature and Ronianci Philulogy in the University of Edinburgh xmiitb Seventeen ipiatce an6 ipour TlWooDcuts LONDON H. GREVEL & CO. 2,i, KING STREET, CO VENT GARDEN, W.C. 1899 64133 . ( »^, • .•• /' ; ;i(.i,iis; L\u(ji:i wniy PREFACE R. VOLKMANN has earned the gratitude of all lovers of Dante by the admirable work which it is our privi- lege to introduce to English readers a work as important from the enquiries it suggests as from the original research it contains—a work which combines the proverbial minuteness of the German scholar and the critical spirit of the genuine scientist with the fiery en- thusiasm of an admiring disciple. Dr. Volkmann is the first who has treated exhaustively Dante's relation to art, and / has traced and analysed the influence he has exerted on successive generations of artists. m — " vi Preface. At first sight it may seem very strange that amongst the many thousands of volumes which make up the ever-growing Dante h'terature, not one author shouM have taken up this important problem. For indeed Dante's relation to art i.e., the pictorial and plastic construction of the " Divine Comedy '—is so forcible that it does not escape the most superficial reader. Not only is Dante's influence on some of the great masters (Giotto, Botticelli, Signorelli, Michelangelo, Rossetti) a commonplace in the history of art, but every tercet of the Comedy is instinct with the artistic spirit. Dante's intensity of vision, his power of reproducing with almost photographic definiteness the most vanishing shades of light, the most minute details of landscape,— this faculty is almost unparalleled in the whole range of literature. Never was there a poet who possessed to an equal degree the eye of the painter. Never was there a poet who used with the same " virtuosity " the visible world of li"ht and shadow to reach and to reveal the invisible world of feeling and thought. Never was there a genius blending so harmoniously the objectivity of plastic art with the subjectivity of passion and the faculty of abstraction of the philosopher. Whether Dante, the friend of Giotto and Oderisi d'Agubbio, did possess or did not possess a talent for drawing—^as seems indicated by a famous passage from the " Vita Nuova," quoted by Dr. Volkmann—is in itself of very little importance ; one thing is certain, Dante, from the constitutional bent of his genius, is the brother of the giant painters of the Cinquecento. It is something more than a metaphor when we say that Dante is the Michelangelo of poetry, as Michelangelo is the Dante of painting. The "Divine Comedy" is not only the siimma of all the wisdom of his time, it is not only a chronicle of local and general history, it is, moreover, a marvellous gallery of pictures and a museum of sculpture. As you struggle down the abyss of Hell or up the mountain of Purgatory, — — — ! Preface. vii as you are borne up to the celestial spheres, you not only feel the sufferings and passions, you not only try to conceive the profound and subtle disquisitions, theological and scientific, you see all the scenes of the mysterious world with absolute distinctness, a distinctness of vision almost amounting to hallucination. How many single verses one could quote which stamp for ever on the memory either some attitude oi the body or some expression of the face What could sculpture add to the attitude which the poet has given to Sordello " Solo sguardando A guisa di leon quando si posa " ? What could the most dramatic picture add to the expression of Farinata looking around him " Come avesse lo inferno in gran dispitto " ? Who could forget the attitude of Belacqua, sitting prostrate, his face hidden between his knees, "as if laziness were his " sister "Che se pigrizia fosse sua sirocchia"? So far, then, the relation of the Comedy to modern art seems certain, obvious, and simple, not less so than the rela- tion of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" to ancient art. Indeed, it seems possible to assert a priori that the poem must have inspired generations of artists. But when we consider the problem more closely, we at once perceive the enormous diriiculties in the way of a satisfactory solution. Not to speak of the immense amount of labour involved (which will strike all readers of Dr. Volkmann), how is it possible in any degree to estimate the material intluencc of the poet on the painter, except when the painter sets it as his special task to illus- trate the poem? Could , it even be proved that the painter viii Preface. has directly borrowed his subject matter from the poet, this would mean very little, for in painting as in art generally the subject matter is as nothing compared with the execution. But even this borrowing of the subject matter cannot be proved. The subjects treated by Dante, the visions of Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, are so universal, they are so much the common property of the Christian world, that it is almost impossible to prove, and still less to gauge the itifluefice Dante may have exerted. Even where there exists the closest similarity between the work of the poet and the work, of the painter, this similarity may be explained not by any influence of the one over the other, but by the identity of the subject. Dr. Volkmann supplies us with a striking instance. It has always been assumed that Dante has exerted a profound influence on Giotto : and no doubt the spiritual influence must have been enormous, but such spiritual influence cannot be traced ; and as for any material influence. Dr. Volkmann has no difliculty in proving that wherever a material imitation by Giotto was admitted, and an influence by Dante, not of spirit, but of treatment, such imitation and such influence are purely imaginary. Dr. Volkmann's book has not only settled definitely a most interesting historical enquiry, but has raised an ever- fascinating a.'sthetical problem—the fundamental problem of Lessing's " Laocoon." What are the respective limitations and provinces of literature and art in general, of poetry and the arts of design in particular? How far, and under what conditions, is it possible for the painter to compete with the poet in the same subjects ? And whenever rivalry is possible, who is to gain the victory ? And in the struggle between the author of the " Divine Comedy " and the artis:s who tried to embody his creations, who did gain the victory ? The IcoNOGRAFiA Dantesca supplies us with a definite Preface. ix answer. Most of the artists who tried to follow the Comedy failed, and were doomed to fail, both from the limitations o^ their art and from the nature of the subjects. In most cases the painter is limited, and limits the spectator, by the forms he creates ; the poet soars above his creations, and creates in the reader a world of visions and thoughts beyond those expressed. Never was this more true than in the case of Dante. Even the most objective, the most pictorial passages in the Comedy are more remarkable from what they suggest than from what they explicitly state. Every tercet is symbolical, every verse is pregnant with a deeper and more spiritual meaning, and sets at work the imagination of the reader, which would have remained in passive contemplation before the same subject represented in painting. Hence the significant fact pointed out by Dr. Volkmann, that only those artists succeeded in rendering something of the spirit of the Comedy, who, like Botticelli, reduced to a minimum the limitations of painting, and by subordinating colour to design and freedom of outline to composition, tried to reproduce something of the suggestive- ness of the poet, leaving full play to the imagination of the spectator. CHARLES SAROLEA. PREFACE. JHE title IcoNOGRAFiA Dantesca ought of itself dearly to denote the scope and intention of my book ; and it will not ful to suggest itself to every friend and connoisseur of Dante literature that I, in choosing this title, have had in mind Colomb de Batines' exhaustive work, " Bibliografia Dantesca." In this book, too, I wish to deal as comprehensively as possible with a clearly defined subject, which, in spite of much good work, has not yet been exhaustively treated. I may be pardoned for calling the book a Dante Iconography, although it is concerned only with the " Divine Comedy," since the range of pictorial representation hardly extends over the whole work of the poet. As early as 1892 I published a short dissertation on this same subject, which, however, only brought the enquiry to the close of the Renaissance, and was therefore naturally limited in its scope. Although I have made this my basis, I am now able to present a considerably greater amount of material, as I did not previously turn to account all that I had accumulated ; and I have, in addition, taken the opportunity to visit England and France in the interval. The continuation from the Renaissance to the present time is entirely new. My endeavour, however, has not been to attain the complete- ness of a catalogue, but rather to present as comprehensive a picture as possible of the evolution through the centuries of the artistic interpretation of a powerful poem, and to show how each age and nation has abstracted its own spirit and sentiment from the poem or has infused them into it.