Dante's Hell
The Florentine mathematician and architect Antonio Manetti (1423-1497) is
generally considered the founder of the study of Dantean cosmography, and
is particularly noted for his investigations into the site, shape and size
of Dante's Hell. Although Manetti never himself published his research regarding
the topic, the earliest Renaissance Florentine editors of the poem, Cristoforo
Landino and Girolamo Benivieni, reported the results of his researches in
their respective editions of the Divine Comedy (1481,
Florence: Nicolo di Lorenzo della Magna; 1506,
Florence: Filippo Giunti).
The Benivieni edition, also known as the Giuntina,
features two dialogues in which Manetti's theories were expounded. It included
for the first time a series of woodcuts specifically intended to illustrate
Dante's cosmography and in particular, the structure of Dante's Hell ( a,
b, c,
d, e,
f, g).
These woodcuts from the Giuntina edition of the poem represent the
beginnings of an iconographical tradition treating Dante's cosmography and
infernal geography which continues to this day in scholastic editions of
the poem.
The Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius'
second edition of the Divine Comedy in 1515
followed the example of the Giuntina by presenting a cross-section
of the inverted cone of Hell, complete with calculations of infernal mileage
derived from Manetti's theories. Aldus' edition also included another chart
presenting a moral schema (a,
b) of Lower Hell which
has been recently attributed to the Venetian humanist and editor of Dante's
poem Pietro Bembo. Bernardino Daniello's
edition of the Divine Comedy with commentary (1568,
Venice: Pietro da Fino) presented yet another striking and original illustration
of Dante's infernal realm.
The study of Dantean cosmography was a primarily Florentine or Tuscan preoccupation
throughout the Renaissance. Even the young Galileo
Galilei delivered two lectures to the Florentine Academy during the
winter of 1587-88 in which he defended Manetti's opinions against challenges
to the Florentine's views offered in the commentary by Alessandro Vellutello
(1544, Venice: Marcolini). Vellutello had
provided his own series of illustrations(a,
b, c,
d, e,
f, g,
h, i).
In the scholarly 1595 edition of the Divine
Comedy prepared by the Florentine linguistic academy, Accademia
della Crusca, the editors did not fail to include a geometrical
engraving of Hell's design and dimensions inspired by the Florentine
Antonio Manetti's theories.
