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Notes
1. Most of the illuminations discussed in this paper appear in manuscripts held by the
Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence, Italy. I take this opportunity to thank the staff of the
Laurenziana for assisting me during my research at their library during the late winter and spring
of 1983, and for providing me with color slide reproductions of some illuminations. These slides
accompanied the original delivery of this paper at the Third Annual Meeting of the Illinois
Medieval Association. For illuminations in manuscripts not held at the Laurenziana, I have relied
on the reproductions edited and selected by Peter Brieger in Volume II of Brieger, Millard Meiss,
and Charles S. Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts of the "Divine Comedy", Bollingen
Series 81, (Princeton University Press, 1969).
2. "Pictorial Commentaries to the Commedia," in Illuminated Manuscripts of
the "Divine Comedy", vol. I, p. 85.
3. "Est ergo subiectum totius operis, literaliter tantum accepti, status animarum post
mortem simpliciter sumptus." Epistle X. 8, in Paget Toynbee, Dantis Alagherii Epistolae
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920; rept. 1966).
4. See Plate 18 in Brieger, et al., Illuminated Manuscripts, vol. II. All plate
numbers refer to this Volume. Plate numbers are provided in the paper only for specific
illuminations. Where a plate number is not given for a specific illumination, the illumination is not
reproduced in Brieger.
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5. See Brieger, "Pictorial Commentaries," p. 83, for a summary of the most common
subjects chosen for illuminating the three canticles. For summaries of the subjects illuminating
each canto, see Brieger, "Analysis of the Illustrations by Canto," in Illuminated
Manuscripts, vol. I, pp. 115-208; especially pp. 117-18 on Inferno I, p. 158 on
Purgatorio I, and pp. 182-83 on Paradiso I.
6. "La gloria di colui che tutto move per l'universo penetra, e risplende in una parte
più e meno altrove. Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende fu'io...." (Para.
I, 1-5). "The glory of him who moves all penetrates the universe and shines more in one part and
less in another. I was in the heaven that receives the most of his light...."
7. Brieger, "Pictorial Commentaries," pp. 93-94. Charles S. Singleton, "The Irreducible
Vision," p. 10, and Millard Meiss, "The Smiling Pages," p. 45, both in Brieger et al.,
Illuminated Manuscripts, vol. I. See also Dorothy Hughes Gillerman, "Trecento
Illustrators of the Divina Commedia," Dante Studies, 77 (1959), pp. 4-5. Brieger
comments that the portrait image we have come to identify as Dante's was not formulated until
the fifteenth century (p. 94).
8. Brieger, "Pictorial Commentaries," p. 94. Brieger allegorizes the figure as "Christian
Endeavor."
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9. See, e.g., Plate 49a for Bodleian Can. it. 108; Pl. 42b for Holkham Hall 514.
10. Plate 26.
11. See, e.g., Purg. XXXII, 104-05; XXXIII, 52-54; Para. XVII, 128-29;
XXI 97-99.
12. Virgil is identified at Inf. I, 67-81; Beatrice, at Purg. XXX, 128-35,
73;
Bernard, at Para. XXXI, 59-63, 102.
13. Plate 21.
14. "'tu se' solo colui da du'io tolsi lo bello stilo che m'ha fatto onore."