The interpretations of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Italian Renaissance and Medieval art
The main subject of this article is the interpretation of the Divine Comedy by Italian masters of XIVth - ﬁrst half of XVth centuries. Early illustrations of this book are examined in confrontation with Renaissance art in which for the ﬁrst time Dante’s ﬁgures and scenes were reproduced as a distinctly visual images: architectural, plastic, color and light structures. The analysis of medieval Comedy’s treatment principles by commentators as well as artists displays allegorical - moral and theological - point of view. Such mental approach to the Dante’s text is cardinally distinguished from its Renaissance “reading” in art. Both types of Dante’s poem interpretation have an epochal meaning reﬂecting the fundamental vectors of medieval culture or Renaissance one.